Kulak feeling good after bout with COVID-19
Habs rearguard close to 100 per cent with team set to enter Toronto bubble
Defencemen Brett Kulak and Xavier Ouellet both missed the first eight days of the Canadiens’ return-to-play training camp after testing positive for COVID -19, but there was one major difference in their experiences.
Ouellet’s positive test was sandwiched between a battery of negative tests and he didn’t have any symptoms. Kulak knew he was sick.
“I came back to Montreal on July 2 and I was isolated in the hotel for the weekend,” Kulak, who joined his teammates for a full practice for the first time Friday at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard, said during a video conference. “I had my first test and it came back negative, but I was having some COVID like symptoms and I thought it was best that I not join the guys at the rink. I had a second test and, sure enough, it came back positive.
“I had a test at another lab at the Montreal General Hospital on Tuesday and that came back positive, as well, and that’s when I started my 14-day quarantine.
“I had seven or eight days of symptoms that lingered on, but I’m all right now,” Kulak added. “I was a little bit shocked because you don’t know how it will affect you and how symptoms can develop and increase. Some guys shake it off in a day or two, but sometimes it lingers on and gets really severe.
“The first couple of days were the worst. I’d wake up and there was pressure in my head, a dull headache all day. When I had my first negative test, I tried to exercise, arms and body-weight stuff, but I could tell I didn’t have the energy for it. It was affecting my breathing a little bit. As it went, I was in touch with the team and the medical staff and they were super good to me.”
Kulak said he had a good skate on Friday and expected to be close to 100 per cent when the team moves into its bubble in Toronto on Sunday. When the NHL season was paused in mid-march because of COVID-19, Kulak was on the second defence pair with Jeff Petry and that’s likely where he’ll be when the best-of-five firstround play-in series against the
Pittsburgh Penguins begins Aug. 1. Victor Mete was with Petry at practice Friday, while Kulak was paired with Cale Fleury.
Kulak said he’s looking forward to playing the Penguins, who are led by superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
“They have lots of experience there and a couple of world-class players,” Kulak said. “When they have the puck on their stick, they like to hold on to it and make plays and take the time you give them. That will be the biggest thing for myself and the rest of the team — you can’t give those guys much time. You have to play them hard, give them hard minutes throughout the game and I think we’ll have success that way.”
Friday’s practice featured 1-on-1 battles, which were right up Kulak’s alley.
“Today’s practice was awesome,” he said. “I haven’t done battle drills, closing in on guys on the ice and catching them on their tight turns. It was catching up on unfamiliar things you haven’t seen for a few months. It comes back to you pretty quick. You learn guys’ tendencies and you read off them when they’re leaning their weight one way and they try to switch the other way. I think I’m pretty well back to my level.”
Coach Claude Julien is moving closer to the lineup he’ll use in Tuesday’s lone exhibition game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Jesperi Kotkaniemi continues to centre the third line with Paul Byron and Artturi Lehkonen and the question is whether Max Domi will get a look at that spot. He’s on the fourth line now with Jordan Weal and Dale Weise.