Confirmed with Link: Kulak is back (4 years, $2.75M AAV)

[nabob]

I wondered where all the negative no matter what’s went

GK is gone apparently, but Spawn is doubling down on his efforts to fill the void.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

I think this has more to do with Woodcroft trying to shelter Bouchard and Barrie's defensive deficiencies as much as possible.

It's how he was often deployed in Montreal too (not to the same extent of sheltered but he never played top 4 QoC there either)

 

[Oilhawks]

It's how he was often deployed in Montreal too (not to the same extent of sheltered but he never played top 4 QoC there either)

I might have misread @Soundwave post (and don’t know the whole context of the conversation) but I read that as Kulak may not necessarily be expected to be a defacto second pairing guy, but more that he’s meant to be a good partner for Bouchard and Broberg when they’re facing lower pairing competition.

Guess we’ll see if they bring in another D

 

[Gordy Elbows]

Kulak gave us a sample of his play this season and we’d like more! Great to have him back….have a great season!

 

[Fishy McScales]

You’re the one claiming that Kulak is being counted on as an anchor of our top 4 on July 13th…then when someone calls you out on being the usual chicken little you rephrase the statement to be the same thing that no one else is saying.


It’s July 13th he’s casting doom and gloom and proclaiming that Holland completely failed because somehow Kulak is now an anchor of our D lol. Tired of posters like him who on the first day of free agency always chooses and make up the most negative viewpoints possible.

Spawn has basically turned into Junior from the Sopranos at this point. I don't think he used to be like this. The DoD broke him probably.

 

[russ99]

Bouchard is already a better player than Barrie and we can expect a better third year out of Bouchard being able to play some tougher minutes. He will be a better all around defenseman than Barrie as well.

I think the Kulak signing was good but he’s a 3 who can play up for small periods of time, and a small sample size of the postseason is not a true reflection of his overall play in Montreal, last year a pedestrian 3.02 GA/60 5x5 and 1.91 HDGA/60 despite the ”entry denial” cult drooling all over him.

Shoring up the defense is the surest way to push this team into cup contention. The Avs (and to a lesser extent Calgary) have given the league a blueprint on how to beat us, commit speedy D to the offensive zone to overwhelm our subpar team D to put stress on the goalie and generate open high-danger chances, and signing Campbell (not an elite high danger stopper) doesn’t change this.

 

[joestevens29]

Considering what some other guys went for I'm pretty happy with this signing.

 

[North Cole]

Even happier with the price based on what bums like Gudbrandson and Z got.

 

[tardigrade81]

Solid signing !

 

[FlameChampion]

Glad Kulak is back.

I think his contract is better than the majority of other dman out there that signed today.

I understand wanting to get perhaps a dman who plays a bit higher up but our dcore still looks better with him on it, than not on it.

Question I have is, can Kulak play LD2 until Broberg is ready? How long before Broberg is ready?

 

[Drivesaitl]

Reasonable pay and term. Kudos to arrive at this contract when Kulak was among our best D through his time here. Looks like he's just looking at a place to land rather than chase elsewhere.

If you're Kulak its a Win Win. You only have to defend against McD, Drai, Kane in practice.

Did you even watch the playoffs?

He refused to watch or follow the Oilers or post here after the Kane acquisition. But here we are..

Spawn is a poster that was "disgusted" with the Kane signing. To the degree he said he was jumping ship. But sightings persist.

 

[Spawn]

Spawn has basically turned into Junior from the Sopranos at this point. I don't think he used to be like this. The DoD broke him probably.

God forbid anyone question whether it’s smart to shoehorn a 28 year old dman who has never been a top 4 into your teams top 4.

Blasphemy

Reasonable pay and term. Kudos to arrive at this contract when Kulak was among our best D through his time here. Looks like he's just looking at a place to land rather than chase elsewhere.

If you're Kulak its a Win Win. You only have to defend against McD, Drai, Kane in practice.


He refused to watch or follow the Oilers or post here after the Kane acquisition. But here we are..

Spawn is a poster that was "disgusted" with the Kane signing. To the degree he said he was jumping ship. But sightings persist.

Funny I remember a certain Replacement poster being banned for being a . Sightings persist.

 

[Fishy McScales]

God forbid anyone question whether it’s smart to shoehorn a 28 year old dman who has never been a top 4 into your teams top 4.

Blasphemy

It's not specifically about your opinion of Kulak, whatever. It's how unbearably toxic you've become.

 

[Barrsy]

God forbid anyone question whether it’s smart to shoehorn a 28 year old dman who has never been a top 4 into your teams top 4.

Blasphemy


Funny I remember a certain Replacement poster being banned for being a . Sightings persist.

I thought you were outta here cause you were disgusted?

 

[Oilhawks]

Spawn has basically turned into Junior from the Sopranos at this point. I don't think he used to be like this. The DoD broke him probably.

Feels like some posters never left the DoD (and they would say the Oilers didn’t either, as justification). I don’t see the point of being negative about this team all the time anymore. Could they ice a better team? Sure, but it is on the cusp of being a contender at this point and could be a tweak at the TDL and a current RFA breaking out from becoming one.

Edit: ah, yeah. And the Kane thing for that poster

 

[Spawn]

It's not specifically about your opinion of Kulak, whatever. It's how unbearably toxic you've become.

I gave my opinion about the Kulak signing and about 10 different posters shit on me. Yah I’m the toxic one.

 

[Fishy McScales]

I gave my opinion about the Kulak signing and about 10 different posters shit on me. Yah I’m the toxic one.

Whatever dude, enjoy your day.

 

[Spawn]

Whatever dude, enjoy your day.

Lmao, you drop into this thread and have not had a single thing to say about the player or the signing and do a drive by snipe at me with the following comment:

"Spawn has basically turned into Junior from the Sopranos at this point. I don't think he used to be like this. The DoD broke him probably."

And then you accuse me of toxicity. What a crock of shit.

I have engaged with anyone who has wanted to debate the player. I've responded in kind to anyone who has decided to attack me as a poster personally.

 

[North Cole]

I gave my opinion about the Kulak signing and about 10 different posters shit on me. Yah I’m the toxic one.

I don't think I shit on you, I just don't understand how you look at the comparables for what guys like Cernak/Serg/Rutta/Badbrandson/Z are getting and think we got ripped off badly here.

 

[Drivesaitl]

God forbid anyone question whether it’s smart to shoehorn a 28 year old dman who has never been a top 4 into your teams top 4.

Blasphemy


Funny I remember a certain Replacement poster being banned for being a . Sightings persist.

Seems like one of us has possibly made some positive changes and have more positive reflections on the club now. Ymmv.

Its easy for me to have a different view on the specific club now. I used to be a cynic in this regard around the time the Oilers were purposely tanking for picks and Lowe was calling people 2nd tier fans. In the McDrai era and with added Kane, Hyman, its easier to have upbeat view here re: team.

But to me it just doesn't make sense for posters to say they are so disgusted they will never have anything to do with the team, never follow the club again, never post again, and state all that. By doing that didn't you toss in your fan card and carve yourself? We're you wrong? Over reacting? I don't think I've ever seen you acknowledge it. Clarify and I won't bring it up again.

Myself I've tried to mend fences on the Rep thing. Its all any of us can do after mistakes.

cheers

 

[Spawn]

I don't think I shit on you, I just don't understand how you look at the comparables for what guys like Cernak/Serg/Rutta/Badbrandson/Z are getting and think we got ripped off badly here.

Lets put it this way. If the Oilers had a bunch of spare cap to work with I would have no issue with Kulak or this contract to have him play on the bottom pair and fill in the top 4 in the case of injury. I like Kulak. I like what he brought to the team last season.

But I think its a mistake to sign him to this kind of a deal and then expect him to play in your top 4. This is a guy who has basically exclusively been a bottom pair d-man in his career. Even when Nurse could barely skate at the end of the Avalanche series Kulak was playing ~16 minutes a night. It is a big ask to all of a sudden ask a guy who has spent his entire career playing sheltered minutes to move up to 20 minutes a night and not expect that to cause issues for both him and the team.

This is the exact kind of thing the Oilers have done for years. They don't let a guy like Kulak take the spot from someone else. They give it to him and then go "oh, well if he can't do it we'll try and fix it later."

It doesn't feel like good planning. Especially when you consider that the Oilers backend was already a weakness in the playoffs and that was with Kulak playing fewer minutes.

Now maybe Holland has something else up his sleeve. If he manages to bring in a genuine top 4 d-man above Kulak, fine. Sounds good.

 

[North Cole]

Lets put it this way. If the Oilers had a bunch of spare cap to work with I would have no issue with Kulak or this contract to have him play on the bottom pair and fill in the top 4 in the case of injury. I like Kulak. I like what he brought to the team last season.

But I think its a mistake to sign him to this kind of a deal and then expect him to play in your top 4. This is a guy who has basically exclusively been a bottom pair d-man in his career. Even when Nurse could barely skate at the end of the Avalanche series Kulak was playing ~16 minutes a night. It is a big ask to all of a sudden ask a guy who has spent his entire career playing sheltered minutes to move up to 20 minutes a night and not expect that to cause issues for both him and the team.

This is the exact kind of thing the Oilers have done for years. They don't let a guy like Kulak take the spot from someone else. They give it to him and then go "oh, well if he can't do it we'll try and fix it later."

It doesn't feel like good planning. Especially when you consider that the Oilers backend was already a weakness in the playoffs and that was with Kulak playing fewer minutes.

Now maybe Holland has something else up his sleeve. If he manages to bring in a genuine top 4 d-man above Kulak, fine. Sounds good.

The Oilers had 20M to work with, and getting a 1G and 1W for 10M gives us plenty of spare cap. I'm not sure there is evidence yet that the org plans to play him in the top 4 because we still have a hole on D. If we bring back Russell, then sure it becomes more clear Kulak is slotting in as a 2D, but that still has nothing really to do with his contract.

The contract can be good value and the players deployment can be wrong at the same time. Russell usually had good deployment on his 4M contract, but his contract was trash. My point is that 2.75 for a 5/6D is perfectly fine, it's about 500K more than he's worth on a good contract, but he's also much better value than most of what was signed yesterday and there is a significant gap between him and the guys below him on the depth chart. The market is such that 1D are going for 8-9.5M, 2D are in the 4-6M range and 3D that aren't total plugs are starting to cost 2-4M. On average your team should be looking at ~25M for defence.

I think if everything ends where it is now, we can be happy with the contract and realize it's good value while also being disappointed that Holland didn't get a 2LD. Those aren't mutually exclusive in my mind and I'm not willing to hate on this deal on the off chance the Org overplays the player, because then you are no longer objectively looking at the deal IMO.

 

[Spawn]

The Oilers had 20M to work with, and getting a 1G and 1W for 10M gives us plenty of spare cap. I'm not sure there is evidence yet that the org plans to play him in the top 4 because we still have a hole on D. If we bring back Russell, then sure it becomes more clear Kulak is slotting in as a 2D, but that still has nothing really to do with his contract.

The contract can be good value and the players deployment can be wrong at the same time. Russell usually had good deployment on his 4M contract, but his contract was trash. My point is that 2.75 for a 5/6D is perfectly fine, it's about 500K more than he's worth on a good contract, but he's also much better value than most of what was signed yesterday and there is a significant gap between him and the guys below him on the depth chart.

I think if everything ends where it is now, we can be happy with the contract and realize it's good value while also being disappointed that Holland didn't get a 2LD. Those aren't mutually exclusive in my mind and I'm not willing to hate on this deal on the off chance the Org overplays the player, because then you are no longer objectively looking at the deal IMO.

$10m, but about 8 of that goes to resigning Puljujarvi, Yamamoto and McLeod. And then you still need 2 4th liners to fill out a 23 man roster.

The space just isn’t there without a trade.

 

[Jared Dunn]

I doubt he's done, they'll have to shed some salary elsewhere

Kulak is worth 2.75 imo and I don't hate him on the 2nd pairing depending on his dpartner

Petry's best minutes in Montreal have been next to Kulak, he can definitely be a solid compliment to the right guy. Did he play with Bouchard much when he came over?

 

[North Cole]

$10m, but about 8 of that goes to resigning Puljujarvi, Yamamoto and McLeod. And then you still need 2 4th liners to fill out a 23 man roster.

The space just isn’t there without a trade.

Which is probably why we were trying to trade Barrie in the Brown deal since 4M is steep given he's our 3D on that side. If we had Barrie/Kulak signed to 5M total for our bottom pair I don't think anyone would be mad at all. Broberg comes in for 750K and then that gives you 5M to find a partner for Bouchard and be around 25M on D.

We won't know until they go to Arbitration but I don't see it being that much. I expect we probably get Yamo signed for 3M and McLeod for 1.5. I can't see Pool getting 3M in arbitration and he might be traded by then or after. The good news about so many arbitration eligible forwards being cut loose is that if those guys are signed quickly enough you should have a lot of comparables to work off of and hopefully at reasonable prices. I think GMs kind of dropped the ball not qualifying some good players only to go to UFA and spend more.

There's so many forwards out there we should be able to get guys like Milano for 1-1.5M because there seems to be more dudes being cut than spots left. Lots of cheap depth. Foegele could also be dealt. There are some options and I think the thing that will hold us back from getting a good D in a trade isn't the cap but the fact that Holland refuses to trade 1st round picks. I think the cap can be made to work, that's why it was important to trade Kass and not buy him out.