The Edmonton Oilers go up against Brett Kulak and the Colorado Avs tonight, with Kulak now officially a thorn in the side of Oilers management.
Kulak is back to playing third-pairing minutes with the Avs, after playing second-paring minutes with the Pittsburgh Penguins for 27 games. He was by all accounts a strong player for Pittsburgh, teaming up with Kris Letang, with both players reportedly elevating their games.
Kulak did so well they were able to move him for puck-moving d-man Samuel Girard, just 27, and for years a top offensive d-man for the Avs. Pittsburgh also commanded a second-round draft pick for Kulak because the Avs needed to move Girard for salary cap reasons. Girard has a year left on a deal that pays him $5 million per season, while Kulak makes $2.75 million on an expiring contract.
There’s been no shortage of grumping in Edmonton about the December trade that saw Kulak, a second round draft pick in 2029, and Stuart Skinner go to Edmonton for goalie Tristan Jarry, and that grumping only grew louder when Pittsburgh was able to grab a second round pick in the Girard trade.
If Jarry had come in and played well for Edmonton, such complaining would have been muted, but a number of factors have compounded to greatly up the noise of discontent around that December trade: a) Jarry’s weak play in Edmonton; b) he’s got two more years on his $5.375 million per year contract c) the fact that Edmonton’s defensive play has collapsed recently — and to replace defensive d-man Kulak the Oilers had to trade a second round pick to bring in Chicago defensive d-man Connor Murphy.
List of Former Oilers d-men still in pro hockey
Most recently NHL insider Frank Seravalli critiqued the Jarry for Skinner/Kulak deal on Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer.
Seravalli started by praising Colorado’s acquisition of Kulak. “I love the addition of Brett Kulak to their defence corps. I think it just gives them a totally different look and feel than Sam Girard, and I think they’re in great shape.”
Later, Seravalli assessed Edmonton’s December trade.
“The tough part about the trade that the Oilers made — I mean, there’s multiple tough parts about it — to bring in Tristan Jarry is that some of what has played out has been entirely predictable. If you had said on the day that the trade was made that Tristan Jarry would just be another version of Stuart Skinner, like that wouldn’t have been a hard sell for anyone. Anyone would have understood that comparison.”
Stauffer suggested that Jarry has a higher ceiling than Skinner, we’ve just yet to see it.
Seravalli agreed with that notion, but shot back: “Okay, but here’s the issue: you’ve now signed up (Jarry) for (two) more years. When you just finally got to the place with Stuart Skinner where he was becoming a pending free agent and you could go in a different direction and completely reinvent your goaltending situation, now you lock yourself in for more Tristan Jarry, which is just another way of saying more Stuart Skinner. That’s my only point. If you were stuck with the same thing anyway, might as well have just gotten out of it at the end and said, ‘We’re going to redo this.’ That’s the problem.”
Seravalli then brought it back to Kulak: “The Kulak collateral damage that came with that as well, which then necessity means you go out and improve your defence. … It wasn’t worth the risk of saddling yourself with additional years being locked in, in my view.”
My take
1. Things had become toxic in Edmonton for Stuart Skinner and for the team with Stuart Skinner in net. Skinner had made the same kind of mistakes too many times. He had been up and down in the playoffs three years in a row. It was time for a change. I don’t care how much reporters loved to interview Stuart Skinner and what a great guy he was. He needed a new home and the Oilers needed a new goalie.
2. Pittsburgh had Edmonton over a barrel because of the above facts. Bowman likely made a mistake in betting on his goalie tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard for this season. He likely should have moved last summer to make a deal. But that’s 20/20 hindsight. There was also some wisdom in giving Skinner another shot, given his youth and some strong runs of excellent play in recent years, including in the playoffs. As for Pickard, it was hard to move on from him last summer given how well he had played in the 2025 playoffs. Of course, that’s why Bowman gets paid the big bucks, to make the right call on tough decisions.
3. It was tough to see Kulak move on, especially with how well he played in the playoffs. But Kulak was an older d-man on an expiring contract. Bowman was also trying to see if younger d-men could step up. Ty Emberson has done so, but Alec Regula and Spencer Stastney have failed to get the job done.
This left Bowman scrambling at the trade deadline and he had to trade a second rounder for Murphy, an older d-man than Kulak.
4. No doubt because I supported the initial trade for Jarry I’m less inclined to be critical of Bowman just now. I still think Jarry may get it together and show us his ‘A’ game for a long stretch of play.
I wish Kulak had not been part of that deal, but the Oilers had no one else to move in order to get the needed cap space for Jarry.
5. The real mistakes were made in the summer, such as sticking with Pickard and signing up Andrew Mangiapane to a two-year deal.
That’s what put Edmonton in such a difficult cap position this year.
At the same time, the pressure on Bowman to win now in McDavid and Draisaitl’s prime is immense. Edmonton’s GM was in a terrible bind because the NHL’s cap hasn’t risen much yet, but McDavid, Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Darnell Nurse are all in prime earning years, taking up a massive percentage of the cap. Bowman had limited options for improving the team. And despite a few miscalculations on Mangiapane and Pickard, he also made some good moves, such as signing Jack Roslovic to a bargain contract, trading for goalie Connor Ingram, and acquiring young pro players like Quinn Hutson, Josh Samanski and Ike Howard.
We’ll see how it all plays out. The story is far from over, but the thorn in the side of the Skinner-Kulak trade could still prove to be lethal, both for the Oilers and for Bowman’s career in Edmonton.
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