It was quite a productive night for the Edmonton Oilers as they defeated the New York Rangers by a score of 6-2 on Saturday night.
Darnell Nurse, who played his first game back since being the victim of a scary headshot last weekend, was among the Oilers who impressed the most. The veteran defenceman looked better than ever as he sniped home a shorthanded goal in the first period courtesy of a beautiful assist from Mattias Janmark.
It was Nurse’s third of the year and, considering that he was coming off a head injury, he had the perfect celebration to follow it. Daily Hive asked if he had planned the celly in advance, to which Nurse denied.
“I don’t even—what’d I do?” Nurse joked. “I was free-wheeling out there.”
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The celebration was obviously about his recent head injury with Nurse indicating that he is feeling just fine despite it being his first game back.
It was clear that the Oilers were missing Nurse in the three games he missed with injury. The team went 1-2-0 in that span and had to elevate Brett Kulak into a full-time second-pair role. For all his struggles this season, he had been playing a lot better hockey in the games leading up to the injury and it appeared he continued that on Saturday night.
He told reporters after the game that he was happy to get back into game action ahead of an extended five-day break coming up this week.
“I pushed a little bit to be in,” Nurse admitted. “It’s the brain, I’m not gonna go out there unless you feel 100% that you’re capable of doing your job.
“You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you’re setting yourself back months. It was a really good job taking care of it, there’s a lot of work that went into it, but I felt very comfortable to go out there and sweat.”
This upcoming break will not only allow Nurse some extra time to further recover but also help the team as a whole get healthy as both Zach Hyman and Viktor Arvidsson have been fighting undisclosed injuries.
One thing is certain: it’s better to go into a long break with a big win rather than a loss.