Is Brett Kulak on his way out the door?
By Phil Gretzky
There are persistent rumours that the Edmonton Oilers are going to be trading for a stay-at-home physical type of d-man like Joel Edmundson, Jake McCabe, or Vladislav Gavrikov, and even for puck mover Jacob Chychrun.
Who Should The Edmonton Oilers Target?
I’d consider the former three but Chychrun’s injury history scares me a little, not to mention Arizona is asking for two first-round picks and a prospect for him. That’s an awfully risky ask considering that Chychrun has not once played a full season in his NHL career. See for yourself. If he can stay healthy you’d be getting a solid veteran puck-moving D, but if he continues his persistent injury history you could be investing a lot of assets in a trade for the next Oscar Klefbom who’s two or three more injuries away from his career ending prematurely.
Regardless of who it is that’s coming to the Oilers, the Edmonton Oilers would need to send out one warm body to make the cap space work, probably Jesse Puljujarvi as well. We all know they’re snug up against the cap and thus it needs to be a dollar in/dollar out.
All of the rumoured names mentioned are top-four defenders, and there’s no question they’d be upgrades on Kulak, who was struggling earlier in the year but now is starting to come on.
He’d be the obvious name going out in any trade because Nurse is a bonafide top pairing guy who isn’t going anywhere, and Cody Ceci has been proving his metal as a top pairing stay-at-home guy since he got here, he has great chemistry with Nurse so that’s not an issue.
Tyson Barrie currently leads the Edmonton Oilers in points from blueliners so you don’t move him right now, not to mention he’s a key player on the Edmonton Oilers PP which is #1 in the league right now, and you don’t mess with that.
That leaves only Kulak as the odd man out.
Let’s leave Chychrun out of the conversation because he’s too risky to trade for. Let’s take a look at the other three guys who are rumoured to be coming here.