On Friday’s episode of Oilersnation Radio, we were talking about the Darnell Nurse rumours and some of the free agent decisions sitting on the Oilers’ to-do list, and the conversation eventually landed on Connor Murphy in a way that I don’t think I had thought about before. If Nurse is actually on his way out of town, then doesn’t re-signing Murphy start to look a whole lot more important than it already was?

After we wrapped up the podcast, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the Nurse/Murphy situations are more connected than they might look at first. Most of the Nurse conversation starts with the contract, and we all know why that is. A $9.25 million cap hit is a massive number, and if the Oilers can move it in a way that helps them build a better roster around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, then they have to make that choice. That doesn’t mean a trade will be easy, but the insiders are claiming that it’s likely to happen, so we have to operate under that assumption.

The concern is what happens after No. 25 gets shipped out. For all the complaining about Nurse over the years, he still brings a very specific flavour of hockey to the Oilers’ blue line. He’s big, he’s fast, he has never been shy about defending his teammates, and he has been asked to handle difficult minutes for a long time. You can say he didn’t deserve those minutes all you want, but the coaches kept dishing them out anyway. The contract makes him a lightning rod to talk about, and it has since he signed the........

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