Darnell Nurse isn’t hiding from his numbers, nor the criticism that comes with them.
He sees his stats, as well as the position the Edmonton Oilers are in (sitting in the second wild-card spot behind teams with games in hand) and understands the correlation.
They need to be better. He needs to be better.
“In 61 games, I’m minus-12 and have 20 points, I’m not happy about that at all,” he said after the Oilers optional morning skate in advance of their game with Ottawa Tuesday night.
“With that said, if we’re going to reach the goal that we want to reach, I have to step up for sure.”
Nurse has been on the wrong end of some mistakes and missed coverage around his own net, an area that just about everyone on the team is guilty of. He’ll accept his share of the heat because, as a leader on the team and a player expected to be a strong, steady influence in his own end, the turnaround starts with him.
“The accountability, who I owe that to, are the guys in the room,” he said. “That’s it. No one else. Showing up each and every day and giving everything I have for each guy in there and enjoying it.”
Edmonton’s team defence has been the gaping hole in their boat all season; they know that, and have been saying all the right things about shoring that up. It still hasn’t happened yet, with time running out on the season, but Nurse believes it’s in there somewhere.
“We can be much better in that department,” he said. “We’ve shown in stretches and areas throughout the season that when we check, we play really good hockey.
“Our group has it. Individually, we all feel we have it. For me, it’s going out there and being hard to play against. Having fun on that side of the ice is going to help our group. We’re excited about the last 21 games; there is a lot of hockey to be played.”
Nurse is the first to admit the last couple of weeks haven’t been much fun — the long grind, losing games and a general unrest in the community can be taxing — but he’s been around long enough to know that they don’t hand out report cards on the season until the season is over.
“It’s fun to win, so when you’re aren’t winning the amount that we have in the past, the joy probably isn’t there as much. With that said, that (fun) is earned. The harder you work, there is a lot of happiness in the struggle and the grind of it.
“I think if we can up that intensity and embrace that a little more, especially down these last 21 games, we’re going to enjoy the end of this.”
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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