The Edmonton Oilers are taking an aggressive approach to this offseason, and fans are noticing. The promise of a modernization of management has been in evidence before, only to return to the ways of the past. For an organization gifted with consecutive drafts (2014, 2015) that delivered Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, not taking advantage of available analytics and other advancements led to finishing shy of winning the Stanley Cup in the years that followed.Is an aggressive approach a sign that the team will use every tool available to a modern NHL team? With the careers of McDavid and Draisaitl over a decade in, there are signs the club is willing to do the things other organizations have long since refined into useful tools that help in winning. Is this a mirage? This summer will tell us a lot.Two specific storylines run out of time with Edmonton’s established best practices.Management with an edgeOilers fans have observed other NHL teams making some tough decisions that are unpopular in the industry in order to maneuver rosters into a championship position. A famous example came in July 2021, when the Vegas Golden Knights dealt star goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to the Chicago Blackhawks in order to get out from under the final season of his $7 million contract. It was not popular at the time, with fans and in the hockey industry.The Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup two years later in 2023. The organization continues to shock and surprise the competition with unusual transactions considered too aggressive by many other NHL managers and owners. It cannot be lost on Edmonton owner Daryl Katz that the unusual behaviour of Golden Knights management has the team back in the Stanley Cup Final this year.The recent handling of Darnell Nurse this offseason suggests Oilers management is prepared to take that road less travelled. The well-sourced article by Mark Spector at Sportsnet contains information that left little doubt about which way the wind is blowing regarding Nurse among Edmonton’s management.That’s a tell. It’s impossible to misinterpret the quote “there were discussions around healthy-scratching Nurse during the 2024 Final” could only have come from someone very close to the situation. The public at large had the impression at the time Nurse was not at optimal levels due to injury. The reporting at the time had Nurse sustaining an undisclosed injury in Game 2 of the Final, a game that saw the Edmonton defenceman play just three shifts over the final two periods.It’s fairly easy to make a list of Oilers personnel who would have known Nurse’s handling was due to frustration over his performance as opposed to injury. The only conceivable reason to leak it now is to frame the player in a negative light, which is, in fact, what happened this week in Edmonton.