The Edmonton Oilers are down two games to none in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Los Angeles Kings. There is no doubt that hockey is a team game, but there are times when individual performances stand out–for the better, or in this case, for the worse.
Past History
Last season, the Oilers reached the Stanley Cup Finals. They lost to the Florida Panthers in seven games. While the Oilers outscored their opponents 86-61 in 25 postseason games, there was one statistic that was extremely glaring. That was the fact that Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse of Hamilton, Ontario was a -9.
2024-25 NHL Regular Season
In the 2024-25 National Hockey League regular season, Nurse was actually quite effective. In 76 games, he had five goals and 28 assists for 33 points. Nurse was a +11 with 72 penalty minutes, two power-play points, one shorthanded point, one game-winning goal, 188 shots on goal, 136 blocked shots, and 161 hits. However, he still had only 16 takeaways, compared to 69 giveaways.
Nurse’s game-winning goal came on November 14, 2024 in a 3-2 Oilers overtime win over the Nashville Predators. Nurse scored from Connor McDavid of Richmond Hill, Ontario and Leon Draisaitl of Cologne, Germany at 2:33 of the extra period. The shorthanded point was a shorthanded goal and came in a 6-2 Oilers win over the New York Rangers on November 23. Nurse scored with nine seconds left in the first period from Mattias Janmark of Stockholm, Sweden and Connor Brown of Toronto, Ontario to put the Oilers up 2-0 at the time.
Bad Habits in 2025 NHL Postseason returns
Heading into the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, we knew the Oilers defense would struggle with Mattias Ekholm out with an undisclosed injury. However, many in the Oilers fanbase hoped the rest of the defense would pick up the slack. They have not so far as the Los Angeles Kings have come through with wins by scores of 6-5 and 6-2. While the goaltending from Stuart Skinner has been poor, the most glaring deficiencies have been the defensive struggles. The blueliner who has struggled the most is Nurse, who has been flopping around in his own zone, and constantly not in the right positions in his own zone to make a substantial difference. As a result, the Kings have a comfortable lead, and it will take an incredible improvement from the defense to get the Oilers back into the series.
