Number:46
Age: 27
Birth date:July 8, 1993
Birthplace: Volketswil, Switzerland
Height, weight:6-2-192
Stats: 33 GP, 1-4-5, 0.7 point shares, 54.53 xGF% at 5-on-5 per Natural Stat Trick
Contract:Signed through 2021-22 season (two years remaining)
If there's one thing John Tortorella has said consistently over the past few years, it's that you can't give up too soon on a young defenseman.
Perhaps the main reason he has come to believe this is because of Dean Kukan.
The Swiss defenseman came to the Blue Jackets organization in 2015-16 after playing in Sweden and promptly found himself swimming in the depths of the depth chart. In his first three seasons in the organization, he played 137 games with the AHL's Cleveland Monsters and just 19 with the Blue Jackets.
It looked like more of the same in 2018-19 even though he spent the majority of the season in Columbus as the seventh defenseman rather than with the Monsters, with whom he played just five games that year. But Kukan also mostly was a healthy scratch for the Blue Jackets, having played in only 16 of the team's first 72 games on the season.
But something appeared to be clicking in his game as the season went on, and as injuries piled up, suddenly Kukan was a key piece of the lineup. He played in each of the last eight games as Columbus went 7-1-0 to clinch a playoff spot, then was on the ice for all 10 postseason games.
This year, he still wasn't always a regular -- a knee injury that cost him a couple months didn't help -- but he did show enough to play again in nine of 10 postseason games. At this point, his smooth skating, poise on the puck and sneaky offensive ability could make him hard to unseat on the blue line going forward.
"I think he's got some (guts) as far as just holding on to the puck, not being afraid to make a mistake," Tortorella said. "He picks his way through. I just think he's fearless as far as how he plays. He's really come on. Two or three years ago, it wasn't a name we talked a lot about, but he has really grown as a player.
"Mistakes don't bother him. He just goes out and plays."
Entering the season:Kukan's status elevated quite a bit in the eyes of the franchise with his strong play at the end of the 2018-19 season, and with injuries he was playing second-pair minutes during the Boston series. Given the Blue Jackets' defensive depth, playing time certainly wasn't assured, but it was going to be interesting to see how Kukan would fare. At the very least, he'd provide quality depth and continue to push for playing time.
Season recap: Kukan was again the odd man out at the start of the season on the defensive corps, as he played in the team's second game of the year at Pittsburgh but then was a healthy scratch for the next two weeks.
Slowly but surely, though, he became a regular throughout the month of November and December, even earning minutes on the top pair with Seth Jones after Zach Werenski went down with a shoulder injury in a Nov. 30 game vs. the New York Islanders. Tortorella said he gave that responsibility to Kukan because of his legs and ability to skate the puck out of the zone and up the ice, which gave the head coach another mobile defenseman to pair with the excellent skating of Jones.
But for the most part, Kukan was a second- or third-pair option for the team and turned in a solid effort before his regular season ended Jan. 2 when he suffered a knee injury in a game at Boston.
He's also a player whose advanced stats show a different picture than his traditional numbers. The Blue Jackets were outscored 21-13 at 5-on-5 this year with Kukan on the ice, but according to Natural Stat Trick, the Blue Jackets had a 17.7-14.7 edge in expected goals (a measure of shot quantity and quality) with the defenseman on the ice. Columbus also had advantages in shot attempts and scoring chances with Kukan skating.
In other words, Kukan might have simply had some bad luck when it came to his plus-minus number, and he also has enough offensive ability that the Blue Jackets tried him on the power play a few times this year, including during the playoffs.
Once healthy, he did return to the lineup during the postseason and skated in nine of 10 postseason games, where he had an assist and was plus-2 in nine games. He paired largely with Ryan Murray in the postseason and actually had the best xGF% of any Blue Jacket to skate in more than two postseason games, though that pair mostly played against third and fourth lines.
