Nation Sites
The Nation Network
OilersNation has no direct affiliation to the Edmonton Oilers, Oilers Entertainment Group, NHL, or NHLPA
Oilers Trade Tree: The original Brett Kulak deal and Lane Hutson
Photo credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images
May 14, 2026, 21:00 EDTUpdated: May 14, 2026, 20:30 EDT
The Edmonton Oilers may have made a mistake in trading Brett Kulak away.
In December 2025, the Oilers sent Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak, and a 2029 second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Tristan Jarry and prospect Samuel Poulin. Jarry, who was available on waiver just over a year prior, had a tough stretch of games with the Oilers. It doesn’t help that Skinner will be a free agent in a month and a half, while Jarry is still under contract, for a higher cap hit, until the end of the 2027-28 season.
It was made worse when the Penguins flipped Kulak. Before the trade deadline, they sent Kulak to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2028 second-round pick and right-shot defenceman Samuel Girard. Brett Kulak was a cap dump for the Oilers, he was an asset the Penguins used to acquire two second-round picks, and he scored the series-clinching overtime goal for the Avalanche on Wednesday.
But the thing is, it’s not the first time the Oilers have given up an asset that has come to bite them later on. Let’s take a look at the first Oiler trade involving Kulak.
The original Kulak trade
Let me preface this by saying that the original Kulak trade wasn’t bad by any means. On March 21, 2022, the Oilers acquired the left-shot defenceman from the Montréal Canadiens for William Lagesson, a conditional 2022 second-round pick, and a seventh-round pick in the 2024 draft. The conditions for that pick, the Oilers making the 2022 Stanley Cup Final, weren’t met as the Oilers were swept by the Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals.
Kulak was an ever-steady presence on the Oilers’ back-end for the parts of five seasons he spent in Oil Country. He ended his tenure with 15 goals and 71 points in 295 games, scoring a career-high seven goals and 25 points in his final full season with the squad in 2024-25.
The left-shot defenceman has always elevated his game in the playoffs as well. With the Oilers, it wasn’t a one-off instance to see him moving to the second pairing offhand. Over 75 playoff games with the Oilers, he scored three goals and 20 points.
He was such a darn good playoff performer that the Oilers chose to keep him over Philip Broberg, who was given an offer sheet by the St. Louis Blues and eventually blossomed with the Missourian team.
While that decision may not have panned out in the end, Kulak’s tenure as an Oiler was an overwhelming success, making two Stanley Cup Finals, the second and third of his career. But one of the picks the Oilers gave up turned out to be used to select one of the best young defencemen in the league.
Lagesson, drafted in the fourth round of the 2014 draft by the Oilers, has played 107 National Hockey League games, with three of them coming for the Canadiens. He most recently played for the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins in 2025-26. The 2024 seventh was used to select Rasmus Bergqvist, a Swedish defenceman who played 40 games in the Swedish Hockey League in 2025-26.
However, the second-rounder was the big asset that the Oilers gave up, as it was used to select the 2024-25 Calder Trophy winner, Lane Hutson. In 2024-25, the left-shot defenceman scored six goals and 66 points in 82 games, with five assists in five playoff games. In his sophomore season, he doubled his goal output and finished with 78 points in 82 games. Through 11 games during this ongoing Canadiens postseason run, Hutson has two goals and 10 points.
Despite the second turning into Hutson, this isn’t a bad trade by any means, as Kulak was an important player on the Oilers’ defence during their window of contention. Even if the Canadiens used the pick to select Hutston, who knows if the Oilers would have drafted Hutston if they retained this pick, and even if they did, would he have developed into the player he’s become? The Oilers’ track record in developing young players tells us probably not.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Oilersnation, FlamesNation, and Blue Jays Nation. Follow her on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365
Breaking News
- Oilers Trade Tree: The original Brett Kulak deal and Lane Hutson
- NHL Notebook: Are Matthews, Tkachuk, Fox, Robertson big swing trade targets?
- Bruce Cassidy confirms Vegas still hasn’t given permission to interview: ‘It’s what I want to do’
- Bowman: Knoblauch ‘earned’ his three-year extension, but now Oilers need a new voice
- Oilers’ GM Stan Bowman takes responsibility for struggles after firing Kris Knoblauch