The Edmonton Oilers have turned what seemed like a long off-season for Oilers fans into must-watch material.

From firing the calm and collected former head coach Kris Knoblauch to the potential hiring of the commanding and controversial Mike Babcock, and now longtime Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse reportedly requesting a trade and submitting a 3–5 team list — the Oilers have kept things spicy with the draft and free agency still to come.

Trade discussions surrounding Nurse will certainly heat up in the coming weeks, if not days, and with that, we can start speculating what the Oilers’ blue line will look like without their longest-serving D-man.

At this point, the return for Nurse remains unclear, and whether a defenceman is coming back the other way is still up in the air. What is clear, though, is that once Nurse is moved, the Oilers will need to reshape their blue line. And if the return doesn’t include a defenceman, I propose the Oilers bring back pending unrestricted free agent Brett Kulak, Stony Plain’s own, to shore up their back end.

Trading Nurse organizes the Oilers’ blue line more appropriately. Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard will likely be the first pairing next season, and it slides Jake Walman, whose seven-year contract at a $7 million average annual value (AAV) kicks in in 2026–27, into the second pairing on the left side.

I’ve mentioned before that the left-shot Walman played on his offside on the right in 2025–26, but it felt like the Oilers were trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and it just wasn’t a good fit, in my view.

Hopefully, the Oilers can re-sign unrestricted free agent Connor Murphy, who played solid defensively on the second pair in his short tenure, though Sportsnet’s Mark Spector posted on X that there is still uncertainty around his outlook: “Edmonton Oilers still very much on UFA Connor Murphy’s radar. Pending coaching search and status of Darnell Nurse both factors in his decision/negotiation. Not deal breakers, we’re told, but factors.”

That said, if Murphy re-signs, the Oilers’ top four would look like this:

However, there are some concerns about Walman’s ability to stay healthy, having missed 29 regular-season games last season.

And for that reason, a Kulak reunion in Edmonton makes a lot of sense.

Kulak, who played in 370 consecutive games with the Oilers from 2022–25 before he was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins last December and then flipped to the Colorado Avalanche a couple of months later, is the perfect third-pairing defenceman who, time and again, stepped into bigger roles during his Oilers tenure.

If the 32-year-old signed back with Edmonton, the Oilers’ blue line in 2026–27 could look like this:

Kulak would be pencilled in to play with Ty Emberson on the third pairing to start, with whom he played the most minutes in the 2024–25 season (629:19 minutes), where Kulak registered a career-high 25 points (seven goals, 18 assists). Also, the duo posted positive five-on-five metrics that season according to Natural Stat Trick, with the Oilers outchancing the opposition 250–232 when the pair was on the ice.

That said, if we look at Walman’s career pattern and his history of not playing a full 82-game season, it suggests he’ll likely miss games in 2026-27.

And Kulak, who has been able to stay very healthy throughout his career, could easily slide up to play with Murphy on the second pair. And if the Oilers re-sign restricted free agent Spencer Stastney, who would serve as the seventh defenceman, he would fill in on the third pair when injuries occur.

In his last regular-season stint with the Oilers, Kulak had his struggles, posting a -7 rating in 32 games with just two assists last season, but the Alberta-born blue-liner has consistently risen to the occasion when the stakes are at their highest in the playoffs. Another box he checks in favour of bringing him back.

That said, I previously used this reference when referring to Kasperi Kapanen having the ability to tap into the same clutch gene, but in sports psychology, Mark Otten’s 2009 study, Choking vs. Clutch Performance: A Study of Sport Performance Under Pressure, defined clutch performance as “performance improvement under pressure beyond an athlete’s typical level.”

Perhaps there’s something in the water in Stony Plain, but Kulak is one of those types who can consistently improve his play under pressure, having shown it throughout his 111 career playoff games.

The Oilers first saw ‘clutch Kulak’ in their 2022 playoff run. Nurse was suspended for Game 6 in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings, and with the Oilers facing elimination, Kulak stepped in to take Nurse’s minutes, playing 21:19 and finishing a plus-2 that night, as the Oilers won 4–2 and went on to win the series.

But perhaps the best example of Kulak elevating his play came during the Oilers’ 2024-25 run to the Stanley Cup Final.

Ekholm missed most of the Oilers’ first three rounds of the 2025 playoffs with an injury, and Kulak stepped up to play alongside Bouchard. At five-on-five, the Oilers outscored their opponents 7–1 when the duo was on the ice, while Kulak posted five points in 22 games, finished plus-9, and averaged the third-most ice time (23:25) of any Oiler during that run.

He once again rose to the occasion during Colorado’s most recent playoff run, recording five points in 13 games while playing on the second pairing. He averaged the third-most ice time among Avalanche defencemen (20:38), behind only Cale Makar and Devon Toews, and his five points included burying the overtime winner in Game 5 against the Minnesota Wild that sent Colorado to the Western Conference Final.

The Oilers will be pushing hard to win a Stanley Cup over the next several seasons, and they’ve already seen firsthand what Kulak brings when playoff hockey rolls around. If the blue-liner were open to a multi-year deal in the $3.5 million to $4 million range, it’s something the Oilers should seriously consider. It may look rich for someone who would be pencilled in as a third-pairing defender on paper, but overall it offers insurance if Walman misses time or has trouble adjusting on the second pair.

By all accounts, Kulak seemed to enjoy his time in Oil Country and is hopefully open to a reunion. In his first game back at Rogers Place last January, Sportsnet’s Gene Principe asked him during intermission about his video tribute, and he said, “It was pretty emotional; I definitely miss this place.”

The Oilers certainly missed Kulak on the blue line last playoffs, and I know a lot of fans did too, and overall, it just makes too much sense to bring back the Stony Plain, Alta. native to help round out the blue line.