Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
This seems like a roundabout conversation to say that Stone was a the one blocking them and not Kulak.
Maybe carrying a 3.5 million dollar 7th defender was the issue here and not Kulak.
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It was both, actually. Stone was blocking Andersson, and Kulak was blocking Valimaki. Hamonic breaking his face in the season opener is what opened up space for Andersson. But Kulak would have remained in Valimaki's way.
Assuming that Valimaki were to outplay Kulak in training camp, what do you do then? You don't really want to bury $900k in the minors, and you don't really want Kulak to be the 7D - especially if the organization wanted Prout there to provide 'toughness' when needed. So the most likely result in this scenario is the Flames trade Kulak anyway.