Darnell Nurse believes Oilers can reach ‘another level’ without major changes

EDMONTON — There was a time in Darnell Nurse’s career when consecutive Western Conference Finals would have carried him through a summer without his feet ever touching the ground.

But beating Dallas falls way back in the rearview mirror when you don’t win that next series against Florida. That’s just the way a pro athlete thinks, and Nurse is no different.

“The disappointment probably weighs a little heavier,” Nurse admits, “because that’s how you go into the summer, right? It’s that last result you take into the summer.

“With that said, you’ve always got to zoom out and see that there is obviously progress. Going to the Cup Final two years in a row, that’s progress. But it stinks, you know? It stinks, and it sits with you.”

Nurse scored a goal in the Oilers’ 3-2 overtime loss Sunday in Edmonton, the Northern fixture in a couple of split-squad games with the Calgary Flames. Down in Cowtown, Edmonton shut out the Flames 3-0

Around the hockey world, many are calling for change in Edmonton. But internally, it doesn’t seem like much is broken these days.

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“You’ve got to be careful on change,” Nurse began, drawing on years spent on a rebuilding Oilers team that drafted him seventh overall a dozen years ago. “When you’re a team coming up, you would lose in the first round and the message would be, ‘Just stick with it. It’s going to come.’ Now, we’ve been in two Stanley Cup Finals and it feels like, the closer you get, the more everything feels like it needs to change.

“It doesn’t,” he said. “We’ve got to keep knocking at the door and give ourselves the opportunity. For the guys that have been through the experiences, we have to lean on those experiences — lean on the knowledge that we’ve gotten so far.”

Other than the soul-crushing disappointment, back-to-back Final losses do provide a source of motivation — a source that no other team can claim. The last team to lose back-to-back Finals was the Boston Bruins in 1977 and ’78.

“We do a pretty good job using it as motivation,” Nurse said. “Yeah, we did get there two years in a row. But obviously there’s another level that we can go up, because you didn’t do the job.”

Tomasek time

For David Tomasek, Sunday marked his first pro game in North America at age 29, after a decorated career in Europe. The big Czech is acclimating, and it won’t happen overnight.

“Getting used to the system, to the size of the rink,” he said after a pointless night against the Flames, with two shots on net. “(One of those) was one I thought I should have put in. But for me, to get the shot is good.”

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Games with a roster full of rookies are a place to start for Tomasek, who skated on a line with Mattias Janmark and Seth Griffith. But when he gets a chance to play with more established, offensive NHLers, that’s when we’ll get a read on whether he’s ready to help an NHL team win.

“There’s a transition period for guys coming over,” allowed head coach Kris Knioblauch. “The pace of play — you don’t have as much time to make plays, and there’s not as much space to escape and make plays.”

It’s a process that has only just begun for Tomasek, who we expect to get better with each outing.

Edmonton plays in Winnipeg on Tuesday, and the Oilers will likely trot out Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on Wednesday when they host the Seattle Kraken. After that, expect a round of cuts and assignment on Thursday.

Battle lines

These were the lines from Sunday night in Edmonton, where Nurse and Matvey Petrov (two point night) scored for the Oilers. Matt Tomkins went the distance in goal, facing just 14 shots including Morgan Frost’s OT winner, his second of the night.

Podkolzin-Frederic-Savoie

Janmark-Tomasek-Griffith

Pitlick-Hamblin-Lafreniere

Stonehouse-Marjala-Petrov

Nurse-Walman

Dineen-Regula

Millman-Stecher

Tomkins

Pickard

And this is how the Oilers lined up in their 3-0 win at Calgary, where Connor Clattenburg had a goal and a scrap, while Samuel Jonsson and Nathaniel Day split the shutout in goal. Kasperi Kapanen and Riley Stillman also scored for Edmonton.

Howard-Lazar-Kapanen

Jones-Philp-Jarventie

Pitlick-Samanski-Hutson

Clattenburg-Lewandowski-Grubbe

Kulak-Emberson

Leppanen-Brown

Stillman-Akey

Day

Jonsson

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