It was a strange feeling this past weekend, going around town at the beginning of May and not seeing people wearing their finest Edmonton Oilers threads, or a single Oilers car flag on passing cars, at least from what I saw.

The Oilers were ousted by the Anaheim Ducks in the first round, their earliest exit since 2021. In recent season-ending media availabilities, it became clear that several players were battling through injuries, and as a whole, a longer summer to rest will likely do the team good. Still, there were key players the Oilers needed more from in the playoffs, and below we take a look at five of them.

Darnell Nurse

Darnell Nurse played the third-most minutes out of any Oiler (138:49) and had a good goal share at five-on-five at 7–3 against the Ducks, but offensively, as the second-highest paid blueliner on the roster, his zero points through six games was not good enough. At the end of the day, the team needed more production from him.

But above all, many years down the road, when I think back on Nurse’s body of work in the 2026 playoffs, two instances will stand out from the rest, and both of them involved the Oilers’ blueliner deflecting pucks into his own net.

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4:46 AM · Apr 27, 2026

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One came in Game 6, when he put his stick out to block a shot in a way that would’ve made its way onto a “Coaches’ Corner” segment with Don Cherry if it were still around, on how not to block a shot, and another was the infamous one in Game 4, where the puck deflected off Nurse’s skate and was ruled a goal by the officials, despite some controversy over whether it fully crossed the line.

Adding to that, as Golden Era Hockey mentioned recently, Nurse deflected more Grade-A shots into his own net in the regular season than every other Oilers defenceman combined, and he carried that tendency into the playoffs.

Whether it’s bad luck or something in his game that could be cleaned up, combined with a tough playoff showing from the team and the natural urge to assign blame somewhere, it all feeds into the idea that, now more than ever, it........

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