Oilers May Already Have Their Answer On Defence

Brett Kulak might be just the guy the Oilers are looking for to solidify their defence.

Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images - Oilers May Already Have Their Answer On Defence

Stop me if you've heard this one before: the Edmonton Oilers are looking for help on the back end.

With Dante Fabbro in Columbus and David Jiricek in Minnesota, the Oilers have already watched two possible trade targets go off the market. They face fierce competition at the top of the market, as they're far from the only team sniffing around trade candidates like Marcus Pettersson, Rasmus Andersson, and Ivan Provorov.

With all that in mind, there's something we've yet to consider: maybe the answer has been staring them in the face all along. The best partner for Darnell Nurse on the second pair has been on the team since 2022. I'm speaking, of course, about Brett Kulak.

For almost his entire NHL career, Kulak has played the underappreciated but vital role of 5th defenceman, crushing bottom-pairing minutes in a shutdown role. That's what the Oilers brought him in to do at the 2022 trade deadline, and he's filled that role admirably in the three seasons since then.

But recently, Kulak has shown more. He's spent nearly 100 minutes next to Darnell Nurse on the second pair this season, usually moving between the bottom two pairs throughout the game for the past month or so.

This was originally a temporary fix, a kind of "throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" move made in response to the second pair's early struggles. But, well, it stuck. Kulak and Nurse have been excellent together, with their 65.7% xG share tied for first in the league among all defence pairs who have played at least 90 minutes together.

They're up there with two of the league's best shutdown defencemen in Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon, and just ahead of pairs led by Norris Trophy winners Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox. That's pretty great company for a pairing that never even starts the game together.

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So, why not make it a permanent pairing?

Now obviously Kulak can't play on the second pair and the third pair at the same time. His promotion would come at the expense of a bottom pairing that's been pretty good. The Oilers would still need to go out and trade for another defenceman to take Kulak's spot next to Ty Emberson.

But that defenceman would come at a much lesser cost: compare what the Oilers gave up to get Kulak (2nd and 7th round draft picks and William Lagesson) to what they traded for Mattias Ekholm (Tyson Barrie, Reid Schaefer, a 1st and a 4th). That would free the team up to go after some more help on offence and in net, both in terms of prospect and draft capital and cap space.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b605dATw8M[/embed]

With 5 goals (just one off his career high) and 9 points already this year, Kulak is in the midst of a career year. It's time to reward him, both to his and the Oilers' benefit.

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