The San Jose Sharks are building one of the most impressive cores in the National Hockey League, and after adding Ivar Stenberg, Keaton Verhoeff and Ryan Lin in the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft, the future looks even brighter behind young star Macklin Celebrini.
While the team failed to make a Stanley Cup Playoffs push in 2025/26, the expectation is that they will be right in the thick of the race next season, and as a result, the team got very aggressive on July 1st in pursuing major upgrades. Those upgrades came on the blue line, starting with Jacob Trouba in free agency before the team made the shock call to trade for Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse, and now, there’s another surprise layer to the move from GM Mike Grier.
Sharks Shock the NHL World With Darnell Nurse Trade
GettyDarnell Nurse with the Edmonton Oilers.
While many expected the Oilers to struggle to find trade partners for the highly overpaid Nurse, with potential retention, a deal could have been made possible this off-season. However, Mike Grier made a very questionable judgement when he not only acquired Nurse, but took on his entire $9.125 million AAV salary across the next four seasons.
Not only that, but he gave up a solid young blue liner in the deal, and while the move was considered highly questionable, the Sharks now have the ammunition in their forward group, blue line and in net to make a post-season push in the coming season.
Sharks Choose Darnell Nurse Over Maple Leafs Star Morgan Rielly
Now, a new report has revealed that Nurse wasn’t the only veteran defenseman that the Sharks had their eyes on, as the team were also in talks with the Toronto Maple Leafs to acquire Morgan Rielly. While both would have been solid buy-low candidates following tough seasons that had the veterans under heavy scrutiny in their Canadian markets, according to several insiders, the Sharks preferred Nurse over Rielly, even given his much, much more expensive contract.
This comes despite speculation that the Maple Leafs are aggressively trying to move off from Rielly this off-season, and after a season in which he posted a -18 differential, his worst number since the 2016/17 campaign, it’s no shock that teams out there aren’t lining up to surrender assets for the 32-year-old. However, given Nurse is owed over $9 million for the next four seasons, this move to prefer him over Rielly is quite surprising, but clearly the Sharks had their preference and are now going to roll with Nurse as a key piece of their blue line as they look to end their seven-year post-season drought.
Ultimately, both players come with significant risk, but for a Sharks team that needed some experience on the blue line after developing the forward group into one of the most exciting in the National Hockey League, and after they made that surprise decision, we’ll see how it pays off in the years to come.
San Jose Sharks Reportedly Shun Maple Leafs Star for Darnell Nurse