{"id":630340,"date":"2026-05-08T05:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630340\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T05:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:34:09","slug":"kulak-settled-in-solidifying-defense-with-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630340\/","title":{"rendered":"Kulak settled in, solidifying defense with Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kulak has 27 points (three goals, 24 assists) in 104 playoff games. That includes three assists with the Avalanche in six postseason games. He\u2019s formed a strong second-defense pair with Sam Malinski<\/a>, who\u2019s in his second full season with the Avalanche.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, for me to be able to play with him, because he has that defensive mindset, it allows me to jump up all the time and create more offense and have the trust he\u2019s going to have my back and be back there to take the rush if I make a mistake or whatever,\u201d Malinski said. \u201cI know where he\u2019s going to be almost all the time and that makes it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kulak\u2019s acquisition is similar to when Colorado traded for defenseman Josh Manson<\/a>\u00a0from the Anaheim Ducks on March 14, 2022, as far as adding a specific skill set on the blue line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got Josh, we were filling a need, size and strength, defending ability, physicality, his ability to break the puck out. We felt he had some good offensive years, and he could continue those years with us and contribute on the offensive side as well,\u201d Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. \u201cThis year, it\u2019s kind of a swap of different types of defensemen for us (Kulak acquired for Sam Girard), but we really liked what we saw from \u2018Kuly\u2019 playing with Edmonton, his skating ability, his shut-down ability, not just in the regular season but being able to help Edmonton get to the Final a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s exceeded expectations for me. When you watch him up close and personal, this guy\u2019s very hard to beat in all situations. He\u2019s stuck to you like Velcro all the time and gives you no time and space. He\u2019s a big, strong guy who skates real well. He\u2019s super intelligent, too. He\u2019s kind of got a lot of the \u2018Tazer\u2019 (Devon\u00a0Toews) traits for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kulak has played a lot of hockey the past two-plus seasons but he\u2019s feeling good. He\u2019s got another chance at the Cup, and after some unexpected moves this season, he\u2019s definitely good with where he is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a crazy year, didn\u2019t expect it to go the way it\u2019s gone (but) to be where we are now with the team I\u2019m on, the position we\u2019re in and how much fun we\u2019re having is pretty special,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, it’s all worked out in my favor, and I feel pretty lucky for the way the year has gone so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

NHL.com independent correspondent Ryan Boulding contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kulak has 27 points (three goals, 24 assists) in 104 playoff games. That includes three assists with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-630340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}