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Originally Posted by The Fonz
I haven't seen many comments on Kulak's game in this thread.
What are everyone's thoughts? I had company over, so missed parts of the game.
I did notice 1 play that he botched and it resulted in a turnover, but he worked his bag off and actually recovered the puck back from the Nuck he turned it over to. Other than this, the kid just seemed to play a quiet, responsible game on the 3rd pairing, which is everything we could have asked for.
Kulak has to know that if he has just 1 bad game, he'll be back up to the press-box in favor of Wideman. For now though, the ball is in Kulak's court... Let's hope he doesn't give it back to Gulutzan.
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My thoughts are that he noticeably struggled to adapt to the NHL speed of things for the first part of the game, but he had enough footspeed to make up for it. Once he got used to the pace and general player speed, he started to anticipate plays more and not be caught off-guard, but he still needs time and coaching. Give him 20 games and he'll blend right in as an NHL defenseman. He's got the tools to be an NHLer, it's just a matter of experience at this point.
As long as you can take some growing pains, it makes more sense to have Kulak play on the 3rd pair than it does for Grossmann or even Wideman to play. Even if we want offense from Wideman, I'm sure that Kulak can do as well or better if given the opportunity.