Why Pittsburgh passed on the Darnell Nurse trade revealed

Elliotte Friedman just explained why the Penguins never bit.

Nurse went to the Sharks on July 1 for Shakir Mukhamadullin and prospect Zack Sharp, with Edmonton retaining none of his $9.25 million cap hit.

For weeks the read was simple: Nurse's tight no-move list boxed Edmonton in, and San Jose came from off that list to finish the job.

Pittsburgh actually sat on his original short list, alongside Philadelphia and Boston. On paper the Penguins were the obvious fit, carrying close to $38 million in space, more than almost any team in the league.

So the collapse was never about cap room. It was about the ask, and Friedman's note reframes the whole thing.

Edmonton wanted Pittsburgh to take back a contract too, and a bigger one than the Mukhamadullin deal the Oilers eventually absorbed from San Jose.

That was the sticking point.

Mukhamadullin, a restricted free agent still on his entry-level deal, is cheap and young, the kind of return a rebuilding Sharks club was happy to take on Nurse's full freight to get.

Pittsburgh was being asked to eat something heavier, and Kyle Dubas had already told everyone where he stood on that.

Through the spring Dubas repeated that he would take on short-term contracts for assets, not long commitments to clean up another club's books. Nurse has four years left at top dollar.

Mike Grier's Sharks are buying, not retooling around aging stars, so paying full freight fit their timeline.

Dubas is chasing early-twenties reclamations like Hendrix Lapierre, not veterans on descending deals.

The list never really mattered.

Nurse could have named Pittsburgh a hundred times, and Dubas still wasn't taking on two contracts to make it work.

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