Morning Notes: Kulak, Chernyshov, Blue Jackets
The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired veteran defenseman Brett Kulak from the Edmonton Oilers as part of the trade between the two clubs that swapped netminder Tristan Jarry for Stuart Skinner. While Kulak adds a level of experience to Pittsburgh’s back end that could be valuable, the club only recently ended an eight-game losing streak that raised significant questions about their ability to compete for a playoff spot this season. That losing streak raised a few questions as to whether the Penguins are best served keeping Kulak for the rest of the year (his $2.75MM AAV deal expires at the end of the season) or if they would benefit from trading him to another team.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that before Kulak was traded to Pittsburgh, “there were teams interested” in acquiring him from the Oilers, but a trade never materialized largely for salary cap reasons. Friedman cited the Penguins’ trade of Luke Schenn to the Winnipeg Jets, very shortly after acquiring him from the Nashville Predators, as a notable precedent here that the team set regarding its willingness to quickly flip a veteran blueliner. While there has not been any concrete indication that Pittsburgh is actively exploring this route with Kulak, Friedman’s reporting indicates it’s something to keep in mind at the very least.
Other notes from around the NHL:
- While the injury suffered by San Jose Sharks forward Will Smith was certainly not something the Sharks have benefited from, the opportunity provided by his absence in the lineup has at least been something other young players have so far been able to take advantage of. 2024 second-round pick Igor Chernyshov has played in the first three NHL games of his career, landing on franchise pivot Macklin Celebrini‘s wing as a result of Smith’s absence. He’s managed three assists in his first three games, playing at an impressive level for a player with no prior experience at the NHL level. That has raised questions as to whether the Sharks would benefit from keeping Chernyshov in the NHL, even after Smith returns, and per San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng, Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky admitted the team “didn’t think he was gonna be this quick to help us,” and added that Chernyshov has far exceeded expectations thus far in the NHL.
- New Buffalo Sabres GM Jarmo Kekäläinen brought one of his former longtime lieutenants, Columbus Blue Jackets assistant GM Josh Flynn, to Buffalo this week in order to fill the same role but for the Sabres. In the aftermath of that move, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline wrote today regarding which other Blue Jackets hockey operations staff might join Flynn in heading to Buffalo. Portzline specifically cited Blue Jackets director of pro scouting Basil McRae, who was formerly an assistant GM before shifting titles after the arrival of current Columbus GM Don Waddell, as a possibility. He also named director of amateur scouting Ville Sirén and goaltending coach Nicklas Backstrom as two other names who Kekäläinen might look to add to his staff in Buffalo.
Penguins Recall Sergei Murashov On An Emergency Basis
Dec. 15th: According to a team announcement, Skinner and Kulak have made it through the immigration process and have been added to the Penguins’ active roster. After doing that, Pittsburgh was able to assign Murashov back to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton from his emergency recall.
Dec. 13th: While Pittsburgh has a new netminder, they’ll have to wait a bit for his debut with the team. The Penguins announced (Twitter link) that both Stuart Skinner and defenseman Brett Kulak have been granted non-roster status while going through the immigration process. With the team needing a second goalie for tonight’s game against San Jose, Sergei Murashov has been recalled from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
Murashov was a fourth-round pick by the Penguins back in 2022 and he is in his second full season in North America. Last year, he split time between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and ECHL Wheeling, doing well at both levels, including a .922 SV% in 26 games with the latter.
That moved him up the depth chart this season and earned him his first NHL action earlier on this season. Murashov has played in four games with Pittsburgh, posting a 1-1-1 record with his win being a shutout. He has a solid 1.90 GAA and .913 SV% in those outings which is certainly worthy of a longer look. However, with two other goalies on their roster, they’ve prioritized maximizing Murashov’s playing time in the minors. In 11 outings with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, he has been elite, compiling a 1.56 GAA and a .943 SV%.
It can take several days for a player to go through the immigration process and with applications typically not getting processed on weekends, it might take a few games before Skinner and Kulak get the green light to make their Penguins debuts.
Oilers Acquire Tristan Jarry, Spencer Stastney
9:45 a.m.: All three teams have confirmed the trades. The Penguins confirmed that the draft pick acquired from the Oilers will be Edmonton’s 2029 second-round pick. No salary was retained in either deal.
9:02 a.m.: The Edmonton Oilers are reportedly close to making a pair of significant trades today. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Oilers are working to acquire netminder Tristan Jarry from the Pittsburgh Penguins and defenseman Spencer Stastney from the Nashville Predators. Shortly thereafter, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun confirmed that Jarry is heading to Edmonton.
As trade details continue to trickle in, LeBrun reported that Stastney will cost Edmonton their 2027 third-round pick. Meanwhile, insider Frank Seravalli suggests that Stuart Skinner and another player are a part of the package going to Pittsburgh for Jarry. ESPN’s Kevin Weekes added that defenseman Brett Kulak and a draft pick are also going to Pittsburgh, while former first-round pick Samuel Poulin is headed to Alberta.
Edmonton’s interest in Jarry has been well-known for the last few weeks. A day before American Thanksgiving, Weekes reported that Jarry had been generating trade interest from around the league and that the Oilers were far and away the most interested — for good reason. Given the tight salary cap situation for the Oilers, it’s likely that trade conversations between Edmonton and Pittsburgh have been going on for the last several weeks.
After playing relatively well for the Oilers throughout their first run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2024, Edmonton returned to the Cup Final last season despite Skinner’s performance. He didn’t play in all the potential games throughout last year’s push, but he finished with a .889 SV% in 15 contests, including a more than disappointing .861 SV% in five games against the Florida Panthers.
The situation has worsened this season, and obviously reached a boiling point for the Oilers’ front office. Through Edmonton’s first 33 games, the duo of Skinner and Calvin Pickard has combined for a .879 SV%. There was no help available via recall either, as third-string netminder Connor Ingram owns a .868 mark with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors.
If Jarry continues his current resurgence, the Oilers should have some newfound stability in the crease. In 13 starts this season, Jarry has a 9-3-1 record with a .909 SV% and 2.66 GAA. According to MoneyPuck, for netminders that have played in 10 or more games, Jarry is ranked 22nd in the league for Goals Saved Above Expected this season. He’s by no means the best netminder in the league this season, though he’s performing much better than Skinner and Pickard, who are ranked 32nd and 52nd, respectively.
Still, Jarry has been volatile in his own right. Last season, in what was the worst performance of his professional career, Jarry finished with a .892 SV% and 3.12 GAA, ranking 33rd in GSAx. If he reverts to that form as he finishes out the remaining three years of his five-year, $28.66MM contract, the Oilers will be in a world of trouble.
At any rate, while they acquired a pair of pending unrestricted free agents in Skinner and Kulak, it’s nothing but a win for the Penguins to receive a second-round pick for Jarry’s services. One year ago, Pittsburgh placed Jarry on the waiver wire, meaning the Oilers could have had him for free had they been able to make the money work. The fact that the Penguins were able to get actual assets for Jarry a year later is a testament to their patience.
Meanwhile, the Oilers have swapped Kulak’s $2.75MM cap hit with Stastney’s $825K. Despite finishing with the highest point production of his career last season, Kulak has struggled through the first few months of the 2025-26 campaign.
Registering only two assists in 31 games, it became apparent that Kulak’s time with the Oilers may be coming to an end. Typically reliable on the defensive side of the puck, Kulak’s 87.0% on-ice save percentage at even strength was troubling considering that he had never finished with lower than an 89.0% mark throughout his 12-year career.
Stastney, 25, offers more on the offensive side of the puck and is actually performing better on the defensive side of the puck compared to Kulak this season. The pending restricted free agent blueliner has scored one goal and nine points in 30 games this season for the Predators, averaging a 90.0% on-ice save percentage.
Lastly, as a part of the Jarry trade, the Penguins have finally moved on from Poulin. The 24-year-old had appeared in a few games for the Penguins this season, but failed to do much with his opportunity despite being given middle-six minutes. Still, he’s been on a tear in the AHL, scoring nine goals and 20 points in 22 games. He’ll likely report directly to the Oilers, considering the number of injuries they’ve had to their depth forwards this season.
Photo courtesy of Russell LaBounty-Imagn Images.
Oilers Have Held Extension Talks With Brett Kulak
It has been a busy week for the Oilers on the extension front as they’ve signed center Connor McDavid along with defensemen Jake Walman and Mattias Ekholm to contract extensions. If they have their way, there’s at least one more to come.
TSN’s Ryan Rishaug recently reported (Twitter link) that Edmonton has engaged in extension talks for pending UFA defenseman Brett Kulak. However, unlike those other players, nothing appears to be imminent at this time.
The 31-year-old is in the final season of a four-year, $11MM contract and he is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in July if a new deal can’t be reached by then. At times, Kulak’s contract has been high enough to lead to trade speculation when the Oilers needed to free up some cap space but each time, they’ve found a way to open up the cap room while keeping him around.
This is Kulak’s fifth season in Edmonton after being acquired from Montreal in 2022 for blueliner William Lagesson and a pair of draft picks (one of which was used to select Lane Hutson a few months later). Early in his tenure with the team, he was used in more of a third-pairing role which made the price point a bit of a premium for that role.
However, head coach Kris Knoblauch leaned on Kulak a lot more last season as his ATOI jumped by more than five minutes a night from 15:23 per game to 20:32. That jumped even higher in the playoffs to 23:25, second among all Edmonton defenders.
That usage will make locking down an early extension a little trickier. Edmonton’s preference would likely be to keep paying him in that number five range with a price tag that should slot in around the $3.5MM mark. On the other hand, Kulak’s camp will probably be seeking a deal more commensurate with a number four defender, something around a million or so more per season.
As things stand, the Oilers have around $17.7MM in cap space for next season, per PuckPedia, based on the original salary cap projection of $104.5MM for 2026-27. However, they still have half a dozen or so roster spots to fill with that money, including a goalie tandem. As the market for netminders continues to go up, it’s possible that they’ll need to spend half of their cap room or more on that position which would make it difficult to fit Kulak back onto their books if his next contract is around a quarter of that cap space.
Accordingly, it’s not too surprising that talks haven’t progressed quickly as it makes sense for both sides to see what type of role Kulak will have this season while also seeing if one of their goaltenders will be worth keeping for 2026-27 and beyond. But at this point, it’s clear that GM Stan Bowman wants to keep the veteran in the fold for a little while longer. It just might take a while for it to happen.
Oilers Have Received Some Interest In Cody Ceci And Brett Kulak
With the Blues tendering offer sheets to defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway, the Oilers now have to decide if they’re going to match those offers, even though it would put them more than $7MM over the salary cap. While Evander Kane’s expected presence on LTIR would mitigate that in the short term, it’s fair to say that Edmonton will need to create some cap space at some point. With several veterans on pricey long-term agreements who are unlikely to be moved, free agents who just signed, or players on low-cost contracts, there aren’t many viable candidates to make that happen.
Of the ones who potentially could be moved, Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the Oilers are trying to get the contracts of blueliners Cody Ceci and Brett Kulak off their books. Combined, the two carry a $6MM cap charge which still wouldn’t be enough to get cap-compliant when Kane is able to play but moving those two would at least get them compliant to start the season in conjunction with Kane’s $5.25MM AAV landing on LTIR.
Ceci has one year left on his contract with a $3.25MM price tag. The 30-year-old has spent the last three seasons in Edmonton, playing in their top four with an ATOI of more than 20 minutes each year. Last season, Ceci had five goals and 20 assists in 79 games while chipping in with five points in 22 playoff contests as the Oilers made it to the Stanley Cup Final. As an expiring deal and being a right-shot defender, he might be the easier of the two to move even with the slightly higher cap hit and he does not have any trade protection on his deal.
Kulak, meanwhile, checks in at a $2.75MM AAV for the next two seasons. Acquired at the 2022 trade deadline from Montreal, the 30-year-old has settled in nicely on Edmonton’s third pairing. Last season, Kulak had three goals and 13 assists in 82 games while averaging 15:23 per night. His playing time went up a bit in the postseason to 16:30 per contest while adding eight points in 25 appearances. However, that price point for a third-pairing defender is on the high side which isn’t ideal in terms of trying to get top value for his services. Kulak also does not have any trade protection in his contract.
To that end, while Garrioch relays that teams have shown interest in both players, it comes at a cost. Not to the potential acquiring team, however. Instead, he notes that with teams knowing that the Oilers are in a bind as a result of these offer sheets, they’re going to want compensation to be sent with the player to incentivize them to bail Edmonton out. Garrioch suggests that the price tag to take a player on in both scenarios could be a first-round pick or a second-round selection. Worth noting is that the Oilers don’t have either of those for the 2025 draft but do for 2026 and if they match the offer sheets, they won’t be getting any compensation from St. Louis.
Edmonton has seven days to make a decision on matching the offers to Broberg ($4.58MM) and Holloway ($2.29MM). There’s a good chance that their ability (or lack thereof) to find a satisfactory trade for one or both of Ceci or Kulak will play a big role in the decisions on their two youngsters.
Pacific Notes: Hertl, Danault, Kulak, Ceci, Fleury
Top trade deadline pickup Tomáš Hertl took a major step toward making his Golden Knights debut Monday, practicing with the team in a non-contact jersey for the first time. The 30-year-old is on long-term injured reserve but is eligible to come off at any time. He had been on standard IR since being acquired from the Sharks on March 8 but was moved to LTIR last week to afford Vegas the cap space necessary to recall goaltender Jiří Patera from the minors with Adin Hill injured. With Patera returned to Henderson as of last night, the Golden Knights have enough cap space to activate Hertl’s $6.75MM cap hit whenever he’s ready to go. He’s expected to suit up for Vegas before the regular season draws to a close. The 11-year vet underwent knee surgery after representing San Jose at the 2024 All-Star Game and hasn’t played since late January. He remains week-to-week, but skating today is a strong indication he’ll be upgraded to day-to-day in the near future.
Other updates from the Pacific Division:
- Kings center Phillip Danault will be a game-time decision with his upper-body injury ahead of tonight’s matchup with the Jets, interim head coach Jim Hiller told reporters (via Ken Wiebe of The Winnipeg Free Press). Danault, 31, missed Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Flames with the injury. The 2011 first-round pick is well on his way to earning Selke Trophy votes for the sixth straight season, although he’s yet to be a nominee. He has 17 goals and 42 points in 72 games this season, in line with his production since joining the Kings on a six-year, $33MM deal in 2021. His +14.5 expected rating this season is the second-highest of his career, and his 56.1 CF% at even strength is fifth among qualified Kings skaters despite receiving difficult defensive minutes. If Danault cannot play, 24-year-old Akil Thomas is expected to make his NHL debut after being recalled yesterday.
- Oilers defenseman Brett Kulak is expected to suit up Monday against the Blues, while Cody Ceci sits due to illness, per NHL.com. Kulak’s status for tonight’s game was uncertain after taking a puck to the head during his first shift against the Ducks on Saturday, ending his game prematurely. The 30-year-old has been decent in bottom-pairing usage for the Oilers this season, scoring three goals and adding 10 assists in 72 games. His ice time has dipped to 15:09 per game, the lowest of his Oilers tenure, but he’s controlled possession well with a +10.3 expected rating and a 52.9 CF% at even strength in his relatively easy minutes.
- The Kraken brought defenseman Cale Fleury back up from AHL Coachella Valley after sending him down yesterday, per a team announcement. Fleury has been summoned multiple times over the past few weeks for injury insurance while star blue-liner Vince Dunn remains sidelined with an upper-body injury. He hasn’t seen any game action, though, serving as a healthy scratch in the two games he’s been rostered for. On the farm, the 25-year-old has 32 points in 60 games, leading Coachella Valley defensemen. He signed a two-year, $1.6MM contract to remain in the Seattle organization last summer after reaching restricted free agency.
Edmonton Oilers Rank Last In Salary Cap Rankings
Daily Faceoff has ranked the Edmonton Oilers last in salary cap efficiency. This comes as no surprise after the website began its annual salary cap rankings list and after a deep dive into the numbers determined that there isn’t a team in a worse situation financially than the Oilers. It isn’t a shock given the Oilers current salary cap woes. The team finds itself with just 21 players on the roster and only $382,499 in cap space. Though finishing dead last on the list is new, Edmonton ranked second last in last year’s version of the list.
Daily Faceoff’s ranking system looks at no-move clauses, dead cap space, the quality of long-term contracts, bargain contracts, and the good deals versus the bad ones. Unfortunately, based on those criteria, it is easy to see why the Oilers find themselves at the bottom of that list. Edmonton has several problematic contracts on their books, and while they have some bargains like Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The bad deals outweigh the great ones.
Darnell Nurse is a really good defenseman; he eats a ton of minutes for the Oilers and plays a lot of tough situations. However, he does suffer a lot of mental lapses, and at $9.25 million a season, he just doesn’t bring the offensive upside you would like to see in a defenseman making that kind of money. Nurse is also likely to wear down as the miles pile up on his body. Those difficult minutes require that he play with a ton of physicality. It could take its toll on the 28-year-old when he gets on the wrong side of 30.
Some of the other bad contracts on the Oilers are goaltender Jack Campbell at $5MM per season as well as third-line winger Warren Foegele and third-pairing defenceman Brett Kulak at $2.75 million each. The contracts come in addition to the nearly $2MM per year the Oilers are still paying on the James Neal buyout.
On the surface, these contracts don’t look like outrageous overpayments because all the players listed above are still functional NHLers. However, in the flat cap era Campbell, Foegele, and Kulak are all replacement-level NHLers who could have been replaced by other players on contracts of less than $1MM per season. Couple that with the mishandling of Nurse’s previous bridge deals and it all amounts to around $10MM in inefficient salary cap spending that could lead to big problems for the Oilers down the road when they need to offer extensions to McDavid, Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard.
Snapshots: Kadri, Gomez, Kulak
As the offseason progresses, more and more names have come off the board, most recently Matthew Tkachuk, MacKenzie Weegar and an unexpected name in Jonathan Huberdeau, as a result of last night’s blockbuster. One name that has remained, perhaps sitting atop that board now, is UFA center Nazem Kadri. Fresh off a Stanley Cup, Kadri haas taken his time to decide, making clear he wants to go to a contender. Considering the contract he could command after his sensational 2021-22, the teams who appear to have made their offseason splashes already, and his desire to go to a contender, Kadri’s options could become more and more limited.
One destination rumored for Kadri has been the New York Islanders, and The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz says one league source confirmed to The Athletic that there are rumblings the Islanders have been making a push for Kadri (subscription required). Bringing Kadri into the fold would make sense for the Islanders, the team needing to improve its underperforming forward group and Kadri a two-way force that spent several seasons under Islanders’ GM Lou Lamoriello when both were with the Toronto Maple Leafs. On the other hand, the center position is pretty well cemented on Long Island, Mathew Barzal, Brock Nelson, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Casey Cizikas representing their core. On moving one of those five to the wing, one NHL coach told Kurz that Kadri is a center, not entertaining the idea of moving him to a wing, while an NHL scout wouldn’t consider the idea of moving Barzal off center, but did mention Brock Nelson, a sniper who scored 37 goals this season, as an option for the wing. Of course, all of this is hypothetical, with Kadri still very much a free agent, but the rumblings linking Kadri to the Islanders adds another wrinkle to the ever-developing story.
- Former star forward, assistant coach, and two-time Stanley Cup Champion Scott Gomez sat down with NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky to discuss his current career and his interest in returning to the NHL in some capacity (link). Since stepping away from his job as assistant coach with the Islanders in 2019, Gomez has worked with ELEV802, a company that builds small ice rink surfaces for children. As much as Gomez seems to enjoy his current role, he expressed interest in returning to the NHL, ideally in a team’s player development office, wanting to work with players individually, adding how important those in that role were to him in his development.
- Edmonton Oilers defenseman Brett Kulak had a chance to reflect on his trip to the UFA market and his decision to re-sign in Edmonton with Mike Arcuri of EdmontonOilers.com (link). A hometown player and native of Stony Plain, AB, Kulak nonetheless chose to take the experience and see what the market brought to him, considering it a potential once-in-a-career opportunity. Ultimately, the former Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens defenseman chose to stay-put, signing a four-year, $11MM contract, telling Arcuri that Edmonton’s offer gave him and his wife “the balance of things I wanted in my next contract,” citing opportunity, a good team, and dollar value as the things he was searching for. Kulak’s comments serve to shed light on the free agency experience for players and show that the decision is not always solely financial or solely personal, and impacts more than just the player. Coming from Kulak, a good NHL player, but not necessarily the prized-piece like a Johnny Gaudreau, brings light to how the average NHL player looks at these decisions, and even helps consider that no two players are exactly the same and each has plenty on their plate to influence the decision that they and their family members make.
Edmonton Oilers Re-Sign Brett Kulak
After seeing what’s out there, Brett Kulak has decided to go back to the Edmonton Oilers after all. The depth defenseman has re-signed with the Oilers according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports it will be a four-year deal worth $2.75MM per season.
It’s been a fast rise for Kulak, who came to Edmonton in a mid-season trade. There are some who questioned Oilers GM Ken Holland’s choice to part with a second-round pick in order to acquire Kulak, but he answered those questions with his play as an Oiler. Kulak, an analytics darling, was a reliable two-way defenseman for the Oilers during their run to the Western Conference Final, showing that he could be just as comfortable carrying the puck in transition as he was battling a forward for position in front of the net. Kulak’s versatile, all-situations game endeared him to both coach Jay Woodcroft and Edmonton fans and is likely what earned him this deal.
This deal is largely a positive one, but not without at least some risk. During his time in Montreal, Kulak would have stretches where he looked like a fit in the team’s top-four, and then have stretches where he didn’t even look like he belonged on the ice. The talent was there, but the consistency was missing. The success of Kulak’s tenure in Edmonton so far brings up the question: has Kulak become the consistently reliable defenseman he’s shown he’s talented enough to be? Or is this just another one of his “good” stretches, just one that he’s timed really well?
That’s the question Kulak will need to answer, but based on his play in Edmonton so far it’s hard to be anything but optimistic.
Free Agency Notes: Hague, Marchment, Kulak
We haven’t heard a whole lot of offer sheet talk yet this offseason, but there is one young defenseman who could come into play. The Athletic’s Jesse Granger notes that he believes Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nicolas Hague is “a real possibility” as an offer sheet candidate from general managers league-wide. Hague is an important defenseman on the rise in the Golden Knights organization, and while he doesn’t have a lot of leverage on his next contract as he’s not arbitration-eligible, another team could indeed force Vegas’ hand. A second-round pick from their first 2017 draft class, Hague’s notched a solid 42 points in 142 NHL games over the past three years. While he’s been limited to third-pairing minutes on a deep Vegas team, he’s shown really solid play-driving ability as an up-and-coming two-way defenseman. With the Golden Knights’ tight salary cap situation, it’s a reasonable bet that they couldn’t match a healthy offer for Hague.
- TSN’s Pierre LeBrun expects the Montreal Canadiens to make an offer to bring back defenseman Brett Kulak when free agency opens tomorrow. They won’t be alone, though, as LeBrun notes that six other teams could be interested as well. Dealt to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a package that included William Lagesson and a second-round pick at the trade deadline, Kulak is an underrated defensive commodity who’s extremely valuable in a bottom-four role. He’d spent the last three seasons prior to this year in a Habs uniform, and he was a steadying presence in 2021-22 on a struggling team.
- If the Tampa Bay Lightning can’t come to terms with pending UFA Ondrej Palat, The Athletic’s Joe Smith lists Mason Marchment as someone the team could make an offer to in free agency. He’d certainly add a strong checking element to the team’s middle six, and while he likely wouldn’t replace Palat’s value entirely, he’d be a strong value option with a breakout year last season and great underlying metrics. Marchment finished 2021-22 with 47 points in just 54 games.