A very interesting summer take on the Brett Kulak situation from last summer, and the success he has found in Montreal. Interesting points, since with the Valimaki injury we have become a tad shallower on the back end for next season. It is behind The Athletic paywall though.
The Brett Kulak miscalculation: Flames’ value bet turns out to be bust
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Brad Treliving and the Flames brain trust reacted rather harshly to Kulak’s arbitration request. He was placed on waivers twice prior to the hearing, potentially to demonstrate his lack of value league-wide, and then traded to Montreal in exchange for two sub-replacement players in Matt Taormina and Rinat Valiev. With Noah Hanifin arriving via trade as well as Juuso Valimaki and Oliver Kylington bubbling underneath, Kulak seemed expendable anyways.
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In fact, Kulak rapidly became a fixture with Montreal. The team waived and demoted veteran Karl Alzner to keep Kulak on the active roster. His underlying numbers exploded in his second full season in the league, at the bargain basement price of just $850,000. By the end of the year, he was part of the Canadiens’ top four rotation. The team happily re-signed Kulak to a three-year, $1.85 million per year contract this summer, a deal that is poised to be a huge bargain for them moving forward.
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Which means, the worst case scenario was the Flames had a replacement level 24-year-old defenceman who could sub-in on the third pairing, stick around as a seventh defender, or be demoted to the AHL without any cap implications. They didn’t know what the best case scenario was in this situation because Kulak isn’t a blue chipper. Not knowing his upside made him seem ultimately expendable, but, in fact, they had something almost as powerful — they knew the downside on him was so minimal as to be non-existent.
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P.S. Mods, I have quoted a few paragraphs from the article. Let me know if that is acceptable.