Defenseman Brett Kulak of Edmonton, Alberta scored his first National Hockey League overtime winner on Wednesday. He accomplished the feat for the Colorado Avalanche in a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Wild at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. This was a series clinching goal as the Avalanche eliminated the Wild four games to one in the best out of seven second round series.
The fact that Kulak scored the overtime winner was very noteworthy. That is because he only had one goal in the entire regular season. That came on January 19, in a 6-3 Pittsburgh Penguins win over the Seattle Kraken. Kulak scored from Canadian Olympic gold medalist Sidney Crosby with five minutes and 15 seconds left in the second period. Kulak put the Penguins up 3-2 at the time. Crosby won a gold medal for Canada at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
Kulak made NHL history this season. He became the first player ever to play a minimum of 25 games with three different teams. Kulak played 31 games with the Oilers, 25 games with the Penguins, and 27 games with the Avalanche.
On Wednesday, Kulak led the Avalanche in scoring as he had one goal and one assist for two points. He was one of three Canadians on the Avalanche to have a three point game. The other two were Parker Kelly of Camrose, Alberta (who had one goal and one assist for two points too), and defensemen Brent Burns of Barrie, Ontario, who had two assists. There was one other Canadian player on the Avalanche to score a goal in game five. That was Nathan MacKinnon of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who tied the game at three with one minute and 23 seconds left in regulation.
