Darnell Nurse receives first punishment of the season from NHL Player Safety

NHL Player Safety has announced that it has fined Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse $5,000 for a late hit on Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kyle Burroughs yesterday evening.

Check it out:

The hit came after the buzzer to end the first period and directly after a hit from Evander Kane on Burroughs. Burroughs is clearly out of the play, with no puck around and with him already reeling from Kane's hit when Nurse comes in to finish the job. 

Here's the hit in question:

It's a reckless, dangerous hit with ill intentions. Nurse was given a 2 minute interference call as a result. 

Personally though, I don't really have a problem with this hit it's more the timing of it that makes it egregious. At the time the Oilers were a pretty listless group and the Canucks had dominated the 1st period. My problem with this hit is that it comes at the buzzer and the Oilers can't feed off it at all. Frankly, this kind of physical play was needed earlier in the period to give the Oilers some energy. As it is, all Nurse did was put the team at even more of a deficit to start the 2nd period. Bonehead play.

In any case, the Oilers ended up storming back to earn a 5-3 victory so what the Hell do I know?

As for Nurse, he'll gladly pay the fine out of his brand new eight year, $74 million contract worth $9.25 million per season. What's crazy is that Nurse will earn a whopping $12 million in salary this season. Crazy...

Don't get me wrong, I love Nurse as a player and I think that he provides the Oilers with something that no one else on the roster does, but $9.25 million is a LOT of money to pay to a defenseman not named Cale Makar, Roman Josi or Victor Hedman. Call me crazy but I think the Oilers are going to regret the Nurse contract for years to come. Maybe not this year or maybe not even for a few years, but the final few years are going to be ugly.