EDMONTON — Darnell Nurse and the Edmonton Oilers are headed for a breakup.

The clock is ticking on the veteran defenceman’s time in Edmonton, with Nurse holding all the cards for one more season before his current no-trade clause morphs into a 10-team list to which he can dealt.

Conversations with several current and former employees all lead to the same place: the Oilers are ready and willing to trade Nurse as soon as they are able.

Sources confirm that Oilers GM Stan Bowman will be speaking with Nurse in the coming days about his wishes.

If Nurse, 31, says he wants to be an Oiler for another season, then trade talk will be shelved and the team will welcome him back for one more year. When he realizes that a trade is imminent, however, two sources have told Sportsnet that the Oilers’ preference would be to move Nurse before the start of next season.

Nurse declined an invitation to comment on this story, while Bowman stated that he would not speak to media before meeting with the player. And likely not afterwards either.

But Bowman has been quietly open to moving Nurse since the conclusion of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, the second straight in which Nurse’s play disappointed.

There were discussions around healthy-scratching Nurse during the 2024 Final, when the Florida Panthers........

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