I think his 5v5 goal scoring really stood out that year. Was riding a really high shooting % though. Bit of an aberration, more than double his career sh%. His skating was great that season, he was all over the ice. Another thing that has unfortunately fallen off with his injuries.
He was definitely trending up for a while, but seems he really slammed into a ceiling right around the time he secured generational wealth. Losing McDavid ice time and his speed being cut down probably the main factors. Won't really question his desire to win, although, maybe he hasn't gone as hard doing extra stuff lately like when he did skills coaching with Oates.
Nurse has always had the physical tools and he had a very high level of compete as well.
In the early years I think thats what made him such an intriguing player. As time moved forward though it became very apparent that he just didnt think the game very well and he just wasnt skilled enough to carry his D partner at all.
Now that his skating/physical ability has dropped off he cant seem to recover from his poor reads nearly as well. Its not going to get any better either.
If there is any way to offload him this season I sure hope that Bowman and Jackson take advantage of it.
Nurse to me is exactly why this new mindset of paying players for what they might do is such a problem.
It used to be that a player got paid once he actually had accomplished something.
The contracts were at least tied to merit back then. Not now.
Wouldnt it be amazing if all of us in the workforce got paid for what we had possibility of accomplishing?