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In 2016-17, the Oilers actually had two partnerships on defence that were more than adequate, Andrej Sekera and Kris Russell on what I would call the top pairing (as the smart puck-moving Sekera was easily the best defenceman on the Oilers) and Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson the second-pairing. By the 2017 playoffs, Klefbom had stepped up and overtook Sekera as the team’s No. 1 d-man, but through the year Sekera had played a far more steady game with his elite passing and sound positional play.

We all know what happened next. Sekera’s game got levelled by two major injuries and Klefbom’s game has been inconsistent due to constant smaller injuries and some defensive holes that top attackers sometimes exploit.

Enter Bear and Nurse.

Nurse was slotted to play on a defensive pairing with Adam Larsson this year, a plan that might have worked but certainly was not at all working when Larsson got hurt. The two were getting beat on far too many Grade A chances against in the pre-season and in their first league game of 2019-20.

Perhaps they would have sorted it out.

I had my doubts, mainly because both are at best average NHL puckmovers. Nurse can skate the puck, but neither player has the strong passing skills of a Sekera or a Klefbom.

Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia

As for Bear, as recently as August 2019, few expected him to make the team, but he came to camp in peak physical condition after a summer of working hard on his body and his skating technique. What he’s done since then — mainly by stepping up when first Joel Persson then Larsson got hurt — has convinced most observers of the team that he’s a solid NHL d-man, if not a solid Top 4 NHL d-man, if not a young player who has a chance of actually sticking in on a top-pairing and not getting his game bashed to smithereens.