EDMONTON — Before he joined the Edmonton Oilers a little more than two years ago, Brett Kulak couldn’t quite put his finger on what had been holding them back.
Kulak had seen plenty of the Oilers, his hometown team as a native of nearby Stony Plain, Alta. He played against them with the Calgary Flames and then the Montreal Canadiens — notably in the all-Canadian division in 2021.
What Kulak witnessed was Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl acting as finely tuned offensive machines, yet the Oilers were stuck in neutral. Something wasn’t adding up.
“I remember being on other teams and looking at them like that,” Kulak said. “It’s like, ‘What’s going on? These guys have over 100 points and they’re not in the playoffs.’
“You see them as a group where the potential’s clearly there to be something special, but they weren’t getting to that point yet.”
Kulak is in his third playoff run with the Oilers since being acquired from Montreal before the 2022 trade deadline, and they’ve reached the second round each year. They’re clearly in the NHL’s elite eight.
Not much is different with the McDavid-and-Draisaitl-led offence. Those superstars are two of the best point producers in the league. There are tons of weapons around them. The power play has been electric.
It’s the play away from the puck that has changed the most compared to Kulak’s past perception of the team as an outsider.
“The way we defend from the net out has improved over the years and something we take a lot of pride in right now,” said forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the longest-serving Oiler.
It’s their improved defensive acumen that could push the Oilers from a contender, as they’ve been since Kulak arrived, to perhaps the Stanley Cup favourite.
In the first round, the Oilers got by the Los Angeles Kings in five games while allowing 13 goals.
That 2.6 goals per game average isn’t going to draw any comparisons to the 1990s New Jersey Devils, but it’s a vast improvement compared to how they fared in that regard over the last two playoffs.
The Oilers were swept by Colorado in the Western Conference final in Kulak’s first postseason with the team, surrendering 3.69 goals per game. They reached the second round last year by allowing an average of 3.5 goals.
They’ve given up roughly a goal fewer per contest — and that’s with some odd bounces working against them early in the series and the bizarre Alex Laferriere goal off the rim-around in Game 5.
The Oilers allowed one goal in two games on the road. They killed off all 12 Los Angeles power plays in the series.
“The first year I came in there were big swings. We ran into Colorado, and it felt like we didn’t even really have a chance once that series came,” Kulak said. “As we’re moving along here, we feel pretty strong.”
Brett Kulak is in his third playoff run as part of the Oilers’ defence. (Winslow Townson / USA Today)
Five games aren’t much of a sample. The Kings aren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut, either; they were tied for 16th with Arizona in goals for during the regular season. So, the Oilers will undoubtedly have a stiffer test when they play Vancouver (sixth) in the next round.
However, this type of defence is what the Oilers have exhibited since the coaching change on Nov. 12.
The Oilers averaged 2.68 goals against over 69 games under Kris Knoblauch, with Paul Coffey running the defence and Mark Stuart overseeing the penalty kill. They were fifth in the league in the department over that span.
Included in that run was a 16-game winning streak where the Oilers gave up two goals or fewer in each of the last 14 contests.
“Our defensive game for the majority of the season has been really good,” Darnell Nurse said. “It was just relied on a bit more, probably, than it has in recent memory.
“When you put together a 16-game streak, a lot of that’s just defending. Sometimes you need a kick in the back to show you (that) you need to defend. When you see the success that comes along with it, it helps.”
Upgraded goaltending, better work while short-handed and one key improvement at five-on-five were the catalysts.
“If you look at the goals scored today by the high-powered offences, they usually come off the rush,” Mattias Ekholm said. “It’s not always the grinding, cycle game. Everyone’s so good one-on-one these days. It’s hard to create offence when it’s a set offensive zone.
“The way we defend the rush now is a lot better. We’ve got better detail, too.”
Overall, the Oilers allowed 236 goals during the regular season — 10th in the league. That’s a 20-goal improvement from last season, or nearly a quarter of a goal better per game.
They’ve improved to the point where they should be considered a staunch defensive team.
“I hope we’ve turned into a better defensive team because it’s a big part of making it far,” Ekholm said. “If you look at the last couple teams that have made a run at it, they can play that stubborn defence.
“I think we’ve taken strides in it.”
Like Kulak, winger Zach Hyman saw a lot of the Oilers while with the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the all-Canadian division before he signed in Edmonton. Hyman terrorized the Oilers in the form of four goals and seven points in nine games.
Just one defenceman, Nurse, remains as a regular from that 2021 Oilers team. Evan Bouchard was on the taxi squad that season and barely played.
What Hyman sees now is a “significantly” improved blue line. From his perspective, the Oilers have “one of the hardest guys in the league to play against” in Nurse. They have “maybe the best pairing in the league from an all-around standpoint” in Ekholm and Bouchard. They have the “steady” Cody Ceci and a “puck-mover who can go up and down the ice” in Kulak. Then there’s Vincent Desharnais, who’s “taken the biggest step out of anybody; he’s established himself as an elite, shutdown guy.”
“The D corps has been formed — other than Darnell — since I’ve been here. It’s pretty cool to see,” Hyman said. “There’s such continuity with the pairings.”
There’s that, too.
Aside from Philip Broberg and 2024 trade deadline acquisition Troy Stecher being sprinkled in, the Oilers have almost exclusively used those six defencemen since Ekholm was obtained from Nashville on Feb. 28, 2023.
Pairs have predominantly been Ekholm-Bouchard, Nurse-Ceci and Kulak-Desharnais.
“Every time you’re looking over at the guy next to you, you know where he’s going to be on the ice. That helps, especially from a defensive standpoint,” Nurse said. “The best teams you play against defensively, they do it instinctively. That comes with just playing together and being able to read off each other.”
“Not that everybody in here can play in every situation, but it’s almost like we all know our roles so well right now,” Ekholm added. “We don’t even have to think about that. We just have to think about how we perform and how we do our roles. That’s a really good thing. It’s helped all six of us.”
Kulak said the biggest reason for the improvement this season is simple: “It’s everyone taking pride in their roles.”
“Everyone wants to score and contribute offensively, but the reality is you can’t have everyone trying to do the same job,” he said. “It’s been more of that — everyone taking ownership of what their strengths are and what’s going to help the team be successful.”
As long as McDavid and Draisaitl are around, the Oilers are always going to be known for their offensive chops. That’s what happens when there’s a generational talent and a perennial 40-goal, 100-point player on the roster. They run one of the best power plays the NHL has ever seen as well.
It’s only natural that the defensive game, and specifically the defencemen, don’t get a lot of attention.
“That’s great,” Ekholm said. “I’ve been on teams where all (people) do is talk about your D corps.
“It doesn’t have to come from the back end all the time when you have a team the way this team is built. I love our D corps. I love the structure of it. We have guys that are outside looking in, too, that can play. They can sleep on us all they want. It doesn’t bother me much.”
(Photo of Darnell Nurse and Mattias Ekholm: Ethan Cairns / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
