Player Discussion Brett Kulak: Top pairing candidate #6

[Habs Halifax]

And I'm the one who's out of touch with reality...

Think again and see for yourself. Last 30 games and last 17 games of the year when the competition was at its best. This is not no popularity contest cause if it was, you would be right. What they actually do is what counts though so throw popularity out the window.

 

[Rapala]

Think again and see for yourself. Last 30 games and last 17 games of the year when the competition was at its best.

He improved dramatically IMO. I remember his start clearly he was getting tagged hard every game. I was thinking how he was looking at a shortened season at that point.

 

[Habs Halifax]

He improved dramatically IMO. I remember his start clearly he was getting tagged hard every game. I was thinking how he was looking at a shortened season at that point.

Looks like he is coachable and learns from what they want him to work at. If he can play the whole year next year like he did in the last 30 games, we have our top 4LD IMO.

The other thing to note is Petry was a + player playing with Kulak. Go look at Petry's +/- history and who he played with and it's usually a - stat. Some sort of value to be taken from this for sure.

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Kulak has proven himself a good 4d, not sure why that's an outrageous statement.

That will be my last post on the matter, since we're (me the first) seriously hijacking a thread that has nothing to do with this, but you guys are in for a ROUGH awakening. I pray to God Bergevin doesn't think like you do.

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

Kulak has proven himself a good 4d, not sure why that's an outrageous statement.

I'll wait and see. I think he's more a bottom pairing guy personally. Liked his production though. I feel like Rielly's a very recent example why we shouldn't be anointing guys to the top 4 prematurely. I think Kulak's a guy who can play top 4 every now and then and do a reasonable job but that's not exactly the same as saying he's a top 4 D. We'll see though.

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

That will be my last post on the matter, since we're (me the first) seriously hijacking a thread that has nothing to do with this, but you guys are in for a ROUGH awakening. I pray to God Bergevin doesn't think like you do.

I'm totally fine with not making any real additions. A top 5 pick in next year's draft would be a god send for our future. So I would love for you to be right. I don't think there will be any serious regressions personally. Maybe a couple. I think if we don't make any serious additions and no rookies graduate we could end up finishing around the same or maybe a bit lower.

I don't have much expectations for next year but 20-21 is when things will start to get interesting for me.

 

[Habs Halifax]

That will be my last post on the matter, since we're (me the first) seriously hijacking a thread that has nothing to do with this, but you guys are in for a ROUGH awakening. I pray to God Bergevin doesn't think like you do.

My only question to you on this is can you give us your reasons? I showed you his stats in the top 4D role with Petry so do you not believe it or something? Our problem was lack of goal scoring in tight games, not defense.

 

[cphabs]

My only question to you on this is can you give us your reasons? I showed you his stats in the top 4D role with Petry so do you not believe it or something? Our problem was lack of goal scoring in tight games, not defense.

Could be coaching and team philosophy as well.

 

[Just Linda]

That will be my last post on the matter, since we're (me the first) seriously hijacking a thread that has nothing to do with this, but you guys are in for a ROUGH awakening. I pray to God Bergevin doesn't think like you do.

Petry has yet to have a defensive partner with the Habs that has had better WOWY stats with him. Kulak is the best LD we have and has proven himself a 4d, not sure what's controversial about that. Nearly every metric shows that.

 

[The Great Weal]

Kulak has not proven himself as a 4d... hes ALWAYS out of position.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Kulak has not proven himself as a 4d... hes ALWAYS out of position.

Kulak's performance when he started the year was different vs the end of the year. Did you ever notice when Petry or Weber are out of position? If Kulak was always out of position, Julien would of not promoted him to play with Petry in the final 30 games of the year.

Do you think you know more than Julien and his coaching staff?

My only concern is can he do what he did in the last 30 games the entire year next year. That's the question we don't know the answer

 

[The Great Weal]

Kulak's performance when he started the year was different vs the end of the year. Did you ever notice when Petry or Weber are out of position? If Kulak was always out of position, Julien would of not promoted him to play with Petry in the final 30 games of the year.

Do you think you know more than Julien and his coaching staff?

My only concern is can he do what he did in the last 30 games the entire year next year. That's the question we don't know the answer

We literally had no other option, it's not because Kulak was fantastic. Hes always out of position and you cant do that as a top 4 dman.

 

[Habs Halifax]

We literally had no other option, it's not because Kulak was fantastic. Hes always out of position and you cant do that as a top 4 dman.

We had the option to go back to Reilly or Folin or Benn who was also playing well. Kulak did very well for us in the last 30 games playing with Petry and go look at Petry's +/- history and who he played with. For the first time in a while Petry was a + player playing with Kulak. Some form of value to be taken from this.

Kulak deserves credit and he appears to be coachable and can learn from mistakes.

 

[Walrus26]

In an ideal world, we would be looking at a better option at 2LD than Kulak.

We aren't in an ideal world and he has showed that he's adequate at the very least as a partner for Petry.

Petry is good enough to be 1RD on some teams.

Kulak is showing enough to be considered a 4/5 defenesman who has some game at both ends of the ice. We could do a lot worse for his cap hit.

 

[The Great Weal]

We had the option to go back to Reilly or Folin or Benn who was also playing well. Kulak did very well for us in the last 30 games playing with Petry and go look at Petry's +/- history and who he played with. For the first time in a while Petry was a + player playing with Kulak. Some form of value to be taken from this.

Kulak deserves credit and he appears to be coachable and can learn from mistakes.

Folin was never going to play in the top 4. Petry played much better defensively because Kulak is always out of position, which is why his offensive production took a hit in the last stretch.

Kulak is in no way a top 4 dman as of now.

 

[Just Linda]

Folin was never going to play in the top 4. Petry played much better defensively because Kulak is always out of position, which is why his offensive production took a hit in the last stretch.

Kulak is in no way a top 4 dman as of now.

There's lots of reasons why Petry's production dipped, it wasn't because of Kulak. He stopped playing the same.minutes, got less PP time, more defensive zone starts, etc etc.

 

[ahmedou]

He progressed nicely down the stretch and played some big minutes-
2 questions

Can he continue developing into a legitimate top 4 Dman?

What kind of contract does he receive this off season?

It's not against him but the top 4 Dman is not for BK.

I think Kulak showed he can be a 4 or 5. Definitely expect him to be signed for at least a couple of years. Not sure what is taking so long.

5 or 6... Not less than that. Not more than that.

Kulak has proven himself a good 4d, not sure why that's an outrageous statement.

Petry has yet to have a defensive partner with the Habs that has had better WOWY stats with him. Kulak is the best LD we have and has proven himself a 4d, not sure what's controversial about that. Nearly every metric shows that.

If we can have better than Kulak you'll say no? For straight eighteen two games it'll be not the same result. A correct signing tho. Having said that, he's not an offensive threat for our demand.

Think again and see for yourself. Last 30 games and last 17 games of the year when the competition was at its best. This is not no popularity contest cause if it was, you would be right. What they actually do is what counts though so throw popularity out the window.

Kulak's performance when he started the year was different vs the end of the year. Did you ever notice when Petry or Weber are out of position? If Kulak was always out of position, Julien would of not promoted him to play with Petry in the final 30 games of the year.

Do you think you know more than Julien and his coaching staff?

My only concern is can he do what he did in the last 30 games the entire year next year. That's the question we don't know the answer

He succeed the less mistakes test. If it's not his totality of what've seen from Kulak in his first season as a Hab - they could continue that experiment. He's not my type for that role tho. It's not about his popularity. It's not about his name. It's not about his face. It's not about useless criteria. It's about usefull criteria to be part of our top 4. Not a down 4.

Kulak has not proven himself as a 4d... hes ALWAYS out of position.

Not always. He should be okay in the top 6 tho.

 

[Just Linda]

It's not against him but the top 4 Dman is not for BK.
5 or 6... Not less than that. Not more than that.
If we can have better than Kulak you'll say no? For straight eighteen two games it'll be not the same result. A correct signing tho. Having said that, he's not an offensive threat for our demand.

He succeed the less mistakes test. If it's not his totality of what've seen from Kulak in his first season as a Hab - they could continue that experiment. He's not my type for that role tho. It's not about his popularity. It's not about his name. It's not about his face. It's not about useless criteria. It's about usefull criteria to be part of our top 4. Not a down 4.

Not always. He should be okay in the top 6 tho.

If we can have better, of course. If the price to get better is too much, I'm okay rolling with him and Mete as the bottom 4 LDs

 

[Janne Niinimaa]

We had the option to go back to Reilly or Folin or Benn who was also playing well. Kulak did very well for us in the last 30 games playing with Petry and go look at Petry's +/- history and who he played with. For the first time in a while Petry was a + player playing with Kulak. Some form of value to be taken from this.

Kulak deserves credit and he appears to be coachable and can learn from mistakes.

The bolded is exactly why Kulak was a top 4 D-man on this team.

None of the bolded should even be regular NHL'ers.

 

[scrubadam]

Kulaks a good one, he is still young for an NHL Dman. He showed a lot last season and I see a lot of Petry in him.

He isn't a superstar top4D, but I think he can be solid enough he can continue on an upward trend. Look at where Petry was at the same games as Kulak.

He is a 5 at least, and still has upside to become a solid if unspectacular number 4.

 

[sharks9]

Made a positive impact on both Weber and Petry when he played in the top-4 this year. Ideally we get a proven top-pairing guy to have on the top line with Weber, but after that if Kulak is our #2LD and Mete our #3, we'd have a very solid d-corps for this year.

 

[HabsCowboysOwn]

Bottom pairing D who can play top 4 for us because we unfortunately don't have anyone better. Not sold on him at all, let's see how he does over the course of a full season before calling him a top 4 D. I don't care about fancy stats, the eye test tells me he's not that good.

 

[Archijerej]

I like Kulak a lot. But that stretch after we acquired Benn should be a lesson not to overrate our defencemen based on small samples.

 

[Habs Halifax]

The bolded is exactly why Kulak was a top 4 D-man on this team.

None of the bolded should even be regular NHL'ers.

Doesn't mean Kulak is not a potential top 4D. My only concerns is can he do what he did in the last 30 games for a full season? If he can, he's a for sure top 4D.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Folin was never going to play in the top 4. Petry played much better defensively because Kulak is always out of position, which is why his offensive production took a hit in the last stretch.

Kulak is in no way a top 4 dman as of now.

Kulak is simply not proven over a full season in a top 4D role but his 30 game sample size shows that he can. I like his game a lot and he clearly improved a lot as the season went along. I'm giving him a shot but yeah, I'd still try to sign Edler. Doubt we can though.