Montreal Canadiens: 7 Talking Points

7. Brett Kulak

Brett Kulak is such an interesting defenseman. When he plays on the third pairing, his level of play ranges from mediocre to decent. When playing with Jeff Petry, however, he looks like a legitimate top-4 defenseman. It is certainly true that Petry makes most of his defensive partners look good, but it is a different level with Kulak. He plays with assertion and confidence on the team’s first pairing, whereas he is more indecisive and invisible on the third.

I have noticed Kulak more often in these few games since the Chiarot injury than I had in the 26 games prior; and for good reasons. Kulak had one magnificent slide in the 4-2 victory against Winnipeg to save a likely goal, he has been far more active offensively, carrying the puck into the offensive zone and creating scoring opportunities and he has used his mobility to get out of sticky situations in the defensive zone.

All of these are things he has always done… when paired with Jeff Petry. In 82 5v5 minutes played with Petry this season, the Habs have scored 3 goals and allowed 2, while controlling 67.77% of the expected goals, the next best pairing to have played at least 60 minutes is the Edmundson-Petry pair with 55.83%, though the Habs scored a staggering 21 goals and conceded just 9 with them on the ice.

Over the past 2 seasons, of all Habs pairings to have played at least 60 minutes, Kulak-Petry still ranks first in xG% with 61.89. Through the same timespan and the same minimum threshold, the pairing ranks 21st in the league, but when bumping up the minimum minutes played to 500 (the pairing has played 625 5v5 minutes together since the start of 2019-20) they find themselves first in the league… by a lot.

The next best pairing in xG% is Jamie Oleksiak-Miro Heiskanen with 57.56%. Kulak Petry also comes in first in CF%, FF% and SF%, they dominate possession. Through this span, the Kulak-Petry pairing has only controlled 53.19% of the actual goals, well below their expectation, so their possession dominance hasn’t translated to dominance in actual goals, which is clearly more important but is less indicative of sustainability than expected goal metrics.

The Edmundson-Petry and Kulak-Petry pairings have both been phenomenal, the first dominates in actual goals scored and should regress while the second underperforms its expected goals and should improve even further. Either combination is a great option for the Habs and the decision of which player gets to play with Petry should be decided by seeing which of the two plays better with Weber… my guess is that Kulak’s mobility will be far more compatible with Weber’s play than Edmundson’s sturdy style.

All statistics sourced from NaturalStatTrick.