This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brett Kulak
Edmonton Oilers Defense
Eighty-four shots on goal from beyond forty feet, one goal, and 39 slap shots.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | CGY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 19:31 |
| 2015-16 | CGY | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 12:21 |
| 2016-17 | CGY | 21 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 0.0 | 14:15 |
| 2017-18 | CGY | 71 | 2 | 6 | 8 | -3 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 73 | 2.7 | 12:59 |
| 2018-19 | MTL | 57 | 6 | 11 | 17 | +12 | 31 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 102 | 5.9 | 17:51 |
| 2019-20 | MTL | 56 | 0 | 7 | 7 | -1 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 101 | 0.0 | 17:08 |
| 2020-21 | MTL | 46 | 2 | 6 | 8 | +3 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 3.5 | 16:06 |
| 2021-22 | MTL/EDM | 74 | 5 | 16 | 21 | -4 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 92 | 5.4 | 17:45 |
| 2022-23 | EDM | 82 | 3 | 17 | 20 | +11 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 114 | 2.6 | 17:31 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 416 | 18 | 66 | 84 | +13 | 190 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 567 | 3.2 | 16:22 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
3 goals and 17 assists in all 82 games, plus-11, 41 penalty minutes, 17:31 a night — a career high in games and in points.
50.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,262 minutes, the 58th percentile, with his ice at 56-52 against an expectation of 54.92-53.13. Both ends within a goal of the chances.
Nine seasons, 416 games, 84 points.
The Finesse Game
114 shots at a median of 51 feet, 77 per cent from beyond forty and 6 per cent from inside twenty.
Beyond forty: 84 shots on goal, one goal — 1.19 per cent, a third of the league rate for a defenceman. Inside forty: 26 shots, two goals.
39 of his attempts were slap shots off a 96.0 mph registered maximum at the 83rd percentile. Three goals in 82 games.
Eighty-four shots from the point for one goal is the least productive long-range volume on this roster, on a roster where nobody’s was productive.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 192. 23.2 mph at the 92nd percentile — one of the faster defencemen in the league — against 0.7 bursts a game at the 41st and 2.45 miles a game at the 40th.
He can skate and does not spend much time doing it, which is a third-pair defenceman’s tracking line: short shifts, moderate distance, real speed available when needed.
41 penalty minutes in 82 games is a moderate rate. He is not a physical defenceman and the game is retrieval and the first pass.
The Intangibles
105th overall in 2012, out of Vancouver in the WHL, and born in Edmonton — a fourth-round pick playing for his hometown club after nine years of getting there the long way.
He has been a third-pair defenceman on three organisations and last season was his best. Edmonton signed him for four more years at 29, which is a bet on a player whose possession numbers have been steady and whose ceiling was established some time ago.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He is not a physical defenceman and the game is retrieval and the first pass.”
“23.2 mph at the 92nd percentile — one of the faster defencemen in the league”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,262 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.8%
- 58th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.5%
- 48th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 56 for, 52 against. Expected: 54.9 and 53.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 34 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2022-23 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.2 mph
- 97th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.74 a game
- Distance
- 2.45 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 96.0 mph
- 77th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 1262 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- EDM took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.8% — 2.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,262 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyson Barrie | 50.1% | 51.4% | 48.3% |
| Zach Hyman | 55.2% | 48.5% | 55.4% |
| Connor McDavid | 57.0% | 47.8% | 57.5% |
50.1% together, 51.4% for him apart and 48.3% for Barrie apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
138 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.