{"id":127013,"date":"2022-03-21T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T17:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=127013"},"modified":"2022-03-21T14:08:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T18:08:49","slug":"brett-kulak-traded-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/03\/21\/brett-kulak-traded-oilers\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Montreal Canadiens Trade Brett Kulak to the Edmonton Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As first reported by Frank Seravalli, the Montreal Canadiens have traded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kulakbr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brett Kulak<\/a> to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a second-round pick and defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/lageswi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William Lagesson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Details:<\/p>\n<p>To <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Oilers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Oilers<\/a>: Brett Kulak<br \/>To <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Habs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Habs<\/a>: 2nd round pick, William Lagesson<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/frank_seravalli\/status\/1505965902235410442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Brett Kulak Traded to the Edmonton Oilers<\/h2>\n<p>Kulak, 28, is a 6&#8217;2&#8243; left-shot defenceman. He&#8217;s played in 316 games throughout his 8-year career, collecting 56 points and 137 penalty minutes. Over the past two seasons, Kulak has also accumulated postseason experience, suiting up in 23 playoff games for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n<p>In 56 games this season, Kulak has 3 goals, 13 points, and is averaging just under 18 minutes of ice-time a night. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.naturalstattrick.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, Kulak has the fourth most 5v5 ice time amongst Montreal&#8217;s defensemen. He&#8217;s just under 50% in expected goal differential, which is relatively good compared to the other top three minute-munching blue-liners in Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.puckiq.com\/players\/8476967?player=8476967&amp;season=20212022&amp;group_by=player_season_team\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PuckIQ<\/a> is able to track a player&#8217;s deployment against different levels of competition. This season, Kulak has spent most of his time against middle and &#8220;grit&#8221; levels of competition, with only 26% of his time against elite competition. In that limited time frame against the opposition&#8217;s best, however, Kulak has faired well in possession, relative to his teammates. Against elite competition, Kulak also has a respectable 52% on-ice goal differential.<\/p>\n<p>Kulak has a cap hit of $1,850,000 million and is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means Going Forward<\/h3>\n<p>One of the Oilers&#8217; biggest needs, next to goaltending, heading into trade deadline day was an addition on defence. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nurseda01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darnell Nurse<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cecico01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cody Ceci<\/a> have been an excellent top pairing as of late, but beyond that, the Oilers desperately needed coverage. Kulak will immediately slot into the team&#8217;s top six, and in doing so, will either pair up with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/keithdu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Duncan Keith<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/barrity01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyson Barrie<\/a> on the second or third pairing.<\/p>\n<p>This move\u00a0gives head coach Jay Woodcroft more leverage to run seven defencemen, a move that he loves to do.<\/p>\n<p>For Montreal, this deal cashes in an unrestricted free agent for a pick and a depth defenceman. That makes sense given their current position in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"Tvlii_KJQS9xmW48i7wm6w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1239347308\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Tvlii_KJQS9xmW48i7wm6w',sig:'rzNvzW2ra6UzAgHjXu0ogD_k-6G6MBYWfQ7l8DWDNZo=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1239347308',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As first reported by Frank Seravalli, the Montreal Canadiens have traded Brett Kulak to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a second-round pick and defenceman William Lagesson. Details: To #Oilers: Brett KulakTo #Habs: 2nd round pick, William Lagesson &mdash; Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 21, 2022 Brett Kulak Traded to the Edmonton Oilers Kulak, 28, is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3938,"featured_media":127031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4547,7,34,4548],"tags":[3554],"class_list":["post-127013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-canadiens","category-news","category-nhl","tag-brett-kulak"],"modified_by":"Luke Flannigan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3938"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}