I hated that too. HOWEVER, considering the suspension was basically unprecedented up to that point (in the sense that it is overturned nearly 100% of the time), Nurse is an old school player, who wanted to defend his guy. I know some people will twist it as being selfish, but the guy clearly cares about his teammates. Which I think is hardly ever acknowledged here. He gets painted as this selfish guy, when everything we've heard about him points to him being a Jason Smith-type player. It's why I think he was likely battling injuries this year, as his skating just doesn't look like it did a year ago.
It is symptomatic of Nurse's impulsive, reactive decision making that unravels alot of good work he does. It might be a conditioned bad habit of self-belief trying to do too much instead of simple plays but repetition over and over also suggests there is a poor processing ability that factors in.
In a critical moment in the Vegas series within a game already decided, there was zero need for Nurse to skate in and engage in that fight. Big picture his suspension sawed off a significant potential turning point with Peter Angel being suspended.
There is a formidable toolkit with the player, size, skating, innate aggression. But his effectiveness has eroded with erratic own zone play, diminished physical ability to dominate hard ice defending, and tendency to make critical moment mistakes. Think for the first time he may have had a crisis of confidence in this year's playoffs.
Nurse needs to reset including his mental approach to simplify his decision making and reduce risk taking. A big part of that is a long overdue top 4RD upgrade that can alleviate Nurse's impulse to try to do too much with a structured, consistent defending style. This team really needs Nurse to calm his game and better harness a pretty formidable toolkit.