Oilers coach Knoblauch explains why Kulak is on the second pair
The Edmonton Oilers have been playing musical chairs with their second defensive pair all season, but they’ve finally found one temporary solution.
Though the team has primarily played either Troy Stecher or Travis Dermott on the right side of Darnell Nurse this season, with arguably mixed results, we have started to see an unexpected name pop up on that pair.
Brett Kulak has been increasingly getting more and more minutes next to Nurse in recent games and the results have been pretty good. The 30-year-old picked up over 20 minutes of ice time last night while shifting between playing the right side on the second pair and the left side on the third pair.
Daily Hive asked Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch after the game what he liked about the veteran defender’s game to give him an extended look alongside Nurse.
“You’ve got two veteran defencemen, Nurse and Kulak, who are on different pairs but we feel like we can get more out of them and they can bring more and they have,” Knoblauch said. “Paul [Coffey] has been rewarding them with a little ice time and the only we can reward both of those guys with a little more ice time is them playing together.
“They’re both good defencemen so it doesn’t matter if sometimes Kulak is on the right and sometimes Nurse is on the right. They’re just playing hockey, they can both handle it. We’ve been very happy with those two.”
"He had a heck of a game, four points & there could've been a lot more. When your top players are rolling & feeling good, it's important for the coach to get them on the ice."
Coach Knoblauch on Connor McDavid's effort against the Islanders.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/8hI8Vx2h3X
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 13, 2024
While Nurse has struggled to start the season, Kulak has been shot out of a cannon. The Stony Plain native is off to the best offensive start of his career with four goals and six points in 16 games. Kulak has also been one of the team’s most dependable defenders in their own zone.
Having the ability to move him up with Nurse is looking like a great short-term solution for the Oilers’ defensive group, but one that the team probably shouldn’t use a crutch down the stretch. The best remedy would be to find an external player through trade that can lock down that second-pair spot while Kulak can continue to crush it on the bottom-pair alongside Ty Emberson, who also appears to be hitting his stride.
However, until Oilers GM Stan Bowman can make that happen, this new experiment should be able to bridge the gap.