This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brett Kulak
Edmonton Oilers Defense
All 82 games at 15:23 for the club he grew up in, and a ledger that matched the chances.
| 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 | EDM | 82 | 3 | 13 | 16 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 94 | 3.2 | 15:23 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 498 | 21 | 79 | 100 | +13 | 220 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 661 | 3.2 | 16:12 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
All 82 games, 3 goals and 13 assists for 16 points, 30 penalty minutes, 15:23 a night and even. He took 54.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,176 minutes, the 85th percentile, and his ice went 45-44 against an expectation of 52.48-43.64.
Seven goals of scoring that did not arrive on a third pairing that was winning its minutes. Eighty-two games at fifteen minutes is the role, and he is one of very few Oilers who played every one of them.
The Finesse Game
94 shots at a median of 52 feet with 69 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 3.2 per cent. Twenty-one goals in 498 career games says all of it.
79 career assists in 498 games. He makes the simple first pass and skates the puck out when nobody is open, which is the whole of what a third-pair defenceman is asked to do with it.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 192 and defends positionally rather than by force.
He blocks shots and takes the puck off the wall without needing to hit anybody. 30 penalty minutes in 82 games is a low rate and there is nothing in his game that generates them.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick in 2012 out of Edmonton, ten seasons, and 100 points in 498 games. He is from here, which matters to people here and to nobody else.
He has been the same player for six years and the club knows exactly what it has. On a blue line with two elite men and a contract, a completely reliable third pairing is worth more than it looks.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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 6-1 and 192 and defends positionally rather than by force.”
“He blocks shots and takes the puck off the wall without needing to hit anybody.”
“He blocks shots and takes the puck off the wall without needing to hit anybody.”
“He makes the simple first pass and skates the puck out when nobody is open, which is the whole of what a third-pair defenceman is asked to do with it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,176 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.6%
- 85th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.2%
- 80th 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: 45 for, 44 against. Expected: 52.5 and 43.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 74 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.8 mph
- 90th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.99 a game
- Distance
- 2.23 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.8 mph
- 70th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1176 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, 2023-24
- The club
- EDM took 56.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.6% — 2.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,176 minutes at five-on-five — 81st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vincent Desharnais | 53.6% | 56.0% | 54.3% |
| Ryan McLeod | 51.3% | 55.9% | 59.2% |
| Evander Kane | 57.3% | 53.5% | 49.4% |
53.6% together, 56.0% for him apart and 54.3% for Desharnais 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
128 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.