We got some breaking news on todays show, when the Edmonton Oilers debuted new D Pairings at practice earlier today. Darnell Nurse slides up to the top pair with Evan Bouchard, while Mattias Ekholm moves down to play with Ty Emberson.
What do you think of the new look pairings? Let us know down in the comments!
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8 Comments
During the off season I think Lowetide from the Athletic did a writeup on a Nurse-Bouchard pairing and his analysis showed that Nurse does far better with a puck moving defenseman. Emberson with Ekholm is intriguing to me. Emberson has made massive improvements in his game since the start of the season so being on the ice with a mentor like Ekholm makes a lot of sense. Stecher and Kulak sounds like a pretty good pairing too. On paper – I really can't see flaws in this but… Theoretically, reality and theory should be same but in reality…they're not.
When we drafted Bouchard, and ever since, I'd envisioned our top pair as Nurse and Bouchard. Ekholm's arrival changed that a bit though, but I still wondered if the end, long term goal would be Nurse+Bouch. Ekholm is a very good defensive defenseman, but he's had his struggles this year too. I think this could provide more balance throughout the D lineup though, in a strange way. Nurse has been so good this year so far that it is definitely worth trying out against a lower end team like SJS.
Bouch and Nurse have actually paired some together in the past and done very well too. Nurse is also a guy who is in such great shape (when healthy) you can feed him a ton of minutes. I also think his speed is something fans tend to underrate, even though they know how good a skater he is. His ability to recover and get back defensively is pretty unbeaten and underappreciated. His gap control used to be his big problem more than anything else people harped on, and it seems he's figured things out now. I'm interested in how this all will play out.
The Oilers could stand to upgrade on Stecher, he definitely isn't bad, and this is a great group they have here now.
Lastly, one more thing.. my wife has always commented about how Nurse is a little better than Bouch in 3 on 3 overtime, and I agree. He's dangerous offensively, but safer defensively. I hope this gets Nurse a bit more opportunity. That all said, this is not Bouchard-hate I'm trying to spread.. I think he's a very good D-man (our best), and I think this could be beneficial to both.
I've commented several times how I wanted to see Bouchard/Ekholm split up. My reasoning is to see how Bouchard would play without Ekholm bailing him out. Ekholm can now help out someone else up his game.
By pairing Bouchard with nurse are they trying to bring down Bouchard's numbers in a contract year!
i like it, i LOVE it even.
Life is change.
Eckholm is awesome whereever he is.
Can't say, i am not anxious as well.
better give it a real try and not abandon it without giving it a real chance.
Correct me, but I thought at one time Bouchard and nurse was a disaster,
I don't like it, keep Bouch with Ekholm and pick up a player at the trade deadline
Yeah this is going to be good I can already tell. It never made any sense to me having Bouch and Ek as a pair from an offensive standpoint considering how good Ek’s shot is for how little he shoots when he can just pass it to Bouch for him to shoot it instead. Defensively I think this will be more solid too.