- Sharks acquire Darnell Nurse from Edmonton for Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp with no salary retained
- San Jose takes on the full $9.25 million cap hit with four years left on the deal
- Read below for Stan Bowman’s tribute and why Nurse picked San Jose
Darnell Nurse is a San Jose Shark.
The Sharks landed the veteran defenseman from Edmonton on the first day of free agency Wednesday. San Jose sent defensemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp back to the Oilers and took on Nurse’s contract with no salary retained.
San Jose made it official on X:
Money was the whole story. Nurse still has four years left on the eight-year, $74 million deal he signed in August 2021, at a $9.25 million cap hit. San Jose had the room to swallow the whole thing.
That gave Edmonton the flexibility to retool around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. General manager Stan Bowman used the day to add goalie Frederik Andersen, trade for Devon Levi and bring in a group of forwards.
Bowman opened his availability by thanking the guy he just traded.
“I wanted to start off by recognizing Darnell Nurse,” Bowman said. “We made a difficult decision to part ways with a true competitor, a lifelong Oiler, a tremendous teammate. He’s a class act, nobody competes harder for his teammates than Darnell.”
Nurse said San Jose was not even on his short list when he agreed to waive his no-move clause. He came around in a hurry.
“Every time I brought up San Jose, even though they were not on my small list, (they said) I’d be crazy not to go there,” Nurse said. “It’s an amazing opportunity and I’m really happy that it happened.”
His departure closes a real chapter in Edmonton. The Oilers took Nurse seventh overall in 2013, and he grew up alongside McDavid and Draisaitl into back-to-back Stanley Cup Final runs. Florida ended both.
He racked up 324 points in 798 games as an Oiler. This past season was a rough one. Nurse managed just 24 points and a career-high 104 penalty minutes after Mattias Ekholm took over the quarterback job on the second power play.
San Jose is buying a defenseman who can still tilt a game when he jumps into the rush. Here is the kind of offense he brings:
For a Sharks team that spent all day adding talent, Nurse is the biggest name of the bunch.
