The Flames need Brett Kulak in the lineup

It feels like Brett Kulak has been on the verge of breaking through with the Flames for years now. Last season is the closest Kulak’s come, playing a career-high 21 games and mostly looking the part of an everyday defenceman therein.

The Flames re-signed Kulak to an affordable $650,000 deal this summer, and the hope for everyone involved had to be that this would be the year he forced himself into the lineup on a more consistent basis. With performances like the one Kulak provided in last night’s 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals, he’s doing his part.

The underlying data reaffirms Yanover’s observations. The Flames controlled four more shot attempts than the opposition at five-on-five with Kulak on the ice. Kulak’s partner? Well, Michael Stone was a minus-one in that exact same lens. All that took was two minutes away from Kulak, too.

That shouldn’t be overly surprising to anyone who’s followed this team, even from afar. Entering the season, the Flames had arguably one of the best top four defence corps in the entire league after the addition of Travis Hamonic this summer.

The question marks always arose when musing on the final two defencemen on the Flames’ depth chart. To finish last season, the Flames traded for Stone from the Arizona Coyotes and reunited Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan with Matt Bartkowski. On the surface, they fared well enough, but the underlying data suggested that this success wouldn’t last long into this season. And it hasn’t.

The only Flames player to enjoy a lower on-ice ratio of shot attempts at even strength than Bartkowski (42.44%) and Stone (44.75%) is Tanner Glass. As a pair, Corsica.Hockey has them as the 10th worst partnership in the league through this lens, as they control just 42.57% of the on-ice shot attempts at evens; they have an identical placing in expected goals.

It’s a small sample – just four games – but Kulak has proven himself far superior to either of the Flames’ more frequently used options on the bottom pair. The Flames leave the on-ice shot attempt battle at even strength with about a 50% share with Kulak on the ice, and that’s with the qualifier that most of those minutes have been spent alongside Stone, who’s proven himself more hindrance than help in this regard.

If you take a step back and look at the work Kulak did last season, though, you’ll find ample reason to believe that this isn’t just a blip on the radar. Kulak fared just as well last season.

It’s worth acknowledging the context in which Kulak is putting up these numbers. He’s never played against the league’s best, and that has to help a fair amount. The thing is, Calgary doesn’t need him to shut down top lines. They have among the best top fours in the league, and have invested heavily in getting to that point, so why not use them accordingly?

If Kulak can keep his head above water at even strength, the Flames have to recognize that as a massive upgrade on the current state of affairs. You can’t say as much about the Stone and Bartkowski pairing, who are drowning in shallow water on a nightly basis.

The easy decision is to sit Bartkowski, given Kulak and Stone’s offsetting handedness. Kulak can also offer some of the transitional skills that Bartkowski does without all the blunders. Unfortunately, the Flames haven’t had a sample of what that would look like to date, but perhaps it’s time they tried to find out?

As a team with aspirations of Stanley Cup contention, the Flames have to add value wherever possible. Their third pair might not be at the top of the priority heap, but sometimes it’s the little moves made on the margins of your lineup that push you over the top. If playing Kulak makes the third pair solvent on a night-to-night basis, that certainly helps.