Oilers sign Nurse to 8-year, $74M extension

The Edmonton Oilers locked up defenseman Darnell Nurse to a max eight-year contract extension with an average annual value of $9.25 million, the team announced Friday.

The deal will kick in for the 2022-23 campaign, as the 26-year-old has one more year at his current cap hit of $5.6 million. He was scheduled for unrestricted free agency before inking his new contract.

Nurse will be the fifth-highest-paid defenseman in the NHL by next season. He trails only Erik Karlsson ($11.5 million), Drew Doughty ($11 million), Zach Werenski ($9.583 million), and Seth Jones ($9.5 million) in terms of AAV.

The Oilers rearguard will also be the second-highest-paid player on Edmonton's books behind reigning MVP and captain Connor McDavid.

Nurse is coming off a career year in which he registered 16 goals and 20 assists in 56 games. He also averaged over 25 minutes per night and had 100 hits with 117 blocks.

Despite Nurse's strong stats last season, his offensive breakout can largely be attributed to sharing the ice with McDavid - the NHL's runaway leading scorer.

Nurse had a 56.3% five-on-five expected goals rate in over 600 minutes with McDavid this past season, according to Natural Stat Trick, compared to a 43.73% clip in nearly 500 minutes without him.

The Oilers drafted Nurse seventh overall in 2013.