WINNIPEG — Brett Kulak wants to show the Calgary Flames that he belongs with them this season.
The defenceman took some steps toward doing that on Tuesday, scoring a pair of goals and adding an assist in Calgary’s 3-0 NHL exhibition victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
"I’ve just come in with a frame of mind this year that I want to take a job on this team and I feel ready to play at this level," Kulak said.
The 22-year-old native of Edmonton played eight games with the Flames last season and 59 in the American Hockey League with the Stockton Heat. He had three goals and 17 points with the Heat and none with the Flames. He also played one game for Calgary the previous season.
Freddie Hamilton scored the game’s first goal at 3:13 of the second period off a rebound of Kulak’s shot from the point.
Goalie Chad Johnson played the first two periods for the Flames, stopping 21 shots. David Rittich had his turn in net for the final period and made six saves.
"I thought he was real good," Calgary head coach Glen Gulutzan said of Johnson.
It was Calgary’s first pre-season victory after it had lost a pair of home-and-away, split-squad games against Edmonton on Monday.
Eric Comrie played the full game in net for Winnipeg’s first exhibition game, stopping 24 of the 27 shots he faced.
Kulak scored an unassisted goal at 12:48 of the second by catching a Jets error.
When Comrie went behind the net to play the puck with teammate Brian Strait, they got mixed up on who was doing what and Kulak took advantage.
Comrie called it a "miscommunication" between he and Strait, whom he’d never played with before.
"It’s just unfortunate," Comrie said. "I probably should have made a better play than that. Left him (Strait) out to dry a little bit."
Jets assistant coach Jamie Kompon said he liked the team’s first two periods, but Johnson stymied them.
"We had a lot of scoring chances and their goalie, an NHL goalie, made it look easy," Kompon said. "He robbed (Brandon) Tanev on a breakaway, he robbed (Andrew Copp) right on the goal line. He made some key saves at critical times that could have made the score 1-0 or 1-1."
Winnipeg iced a lineup that was evidence of its draft-and-develop plan. The 20-man roster featured 12 players who were either drafted or signed out of college as a free agent since 2011, including first-round picks Josh Morrissey (2013) and Jack Roslovic (2015).
