Good for Darnell Nurse. When Mark Spector turned up in the scrum and Nurse, now a Shark, cut him off with a flat "Next!", it was the most fun anyone has had with that defenseman in Edmonton in a long time. A player doesn't owe a reporter warmth or the pretense that nothing was ever written about him. If Nurse wanted to freeze Spector out, that's his call, and he made it with more composure than most guys manage when they're annoyed.
That's where my agreement with the internet ends.
Everyone is building the same thing on top of that clip: that "Next!" proves Spector spent years running a personal, unfair campaign against Nurse. It proves Nurse didn't like how he was covered, and nothing more than that. Those are two completely different claims, and only one of them is in the video.
What happened to Nurse in Edmonton is simple enough. He signed a contract worth $74 million. He became one of the most second-guessed players in that market, because that's what happens to a defenseman on that money when the results wobble. By this past summer the team was shopping him, the rumor mill had him attached to half the league, and fans openly berated him over reports he wouldn't waive his no-move clause. Then he was traded to San Jose for Shakir Mukhamadullin and a prospect.
Every bit of that is a story. Covering it, even harshly, is the job. A columnist writing that a $74 million defenseman isn't playing like a $74 million defenseman isn't bullying anyone. It's the single most predictable sentence in hockey.
Reporters do sometimes turn a player into a punching bag out of habit, because a villain is more fun to write than a defenseman having a quiet, fine night. That happens. But arguing Spector did exactly that to Nurse takes more than "he said something I didn't like." When Nurse slashed Roope Hintz, the man reporting that the league wouldn't suspend him was Spector.
Nurse looks lighter in teal. He scored in overtime to beat St. Louis early in the Sharks' season, and now he answers questions from people who weren't around for the contract or the trade saga. New city, clean slate. I hope it works out for him.
Just don't let a feel-good clip rewrite the last few years. The pressure on Nurse in Edmonton came from the number on his deal and the gap between that number and his game. Spector didn't invent that gap. Pointing at it is the job.
