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The first line from Sportsnet's Mark Spector seems to say it all:
"Darnell Nurse and the Edmonton Oilers are headed for a breakup," he writes.
It's been speculated about and rumored for a while, and this is as concrete a statement of it yet.
Nurse has a no-trade clause, and then after the upcoming season, it becomes a 10-team trade list.
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His play has declined, and his contract is still hefty, and the Oilers surely wouldn't mind moving on and getting a chance to refresh things.
"Conversations with several current and former employees all lead to the same place: the Oilers are ready and willing to trade Nurse as soon as they are able," Spector writes. "Sources confirm that Oilers GM Stan Bowman will be speaking with Nurse in the coming days about his wishes."
Spector goes on to expect Nurse to actually push for a trade sooner rather than later.
"If Nurse, 31, says he wants to be an Oiler for another season, then trade talk will be shelved and the team will welcome him back for one more year," Spector writes. "When he realizes that a trade is imminent, however, two sources have told Sportsnet that the Oilers’ preference would be to move Nurse before the start of next season."
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The biggest problem for Nurse, and a hurdle the Oilers will have to clear to make a deal, is that he has an annual average contract value of $9.25 million per year. That might be double of what he's worth at this point.
Trading him will surely require the Oilers to retain some of his salary, but that still might be the move to make, and it might be coming soon.
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