From Game 2 onwards, the pair flourished thanks in large part to the leadership that Nurse was able to pay forward from his early years establishing himself on the Oilers blueline. Bear benefitted from Nurse's constant communication and guidance as the rookie began sewing the stitches of a breakout campaign.
"He's learned it from good people, and now he's helping younger players," Tippett said of Nurse. "But the younger players, it's easy to say that to them but they need to see you do it. Darnell is a doer. He gets in the gym, he practices, he focuses. He's trying to get better every day.
"A young guy like Bearsy with him like that all the time, that's a big part of the leadership."
In addition to Nurse's growing leadership abilities, he was excelling offensively. The then 24-year-old scored in back-to-back games during an early-January road swing for the Oilers that swooped through Boston and Toronto, notching the game-winning goal against the Bruins before burying one top shelf on the Maple Leafs in front of friends and family at the Scotiabank Centre two nights later.
Above all, however, the team was seeing success.
"That's the way we need to play each and every night," said Nurse post-game in Boston. "Not always are you going to be in the position where you're in the lead going into the third period, but the way we played in the third was simple and direct."