[Trade] Erik Karlsson to Penguins

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by Hackey

As I already explained the comparison is in the contracts not the players. Bad contracts traded for bad contracts. Pretty simple.

Not really, it’s only a bad contract if the player is useless or underperform. Karlson is fully earning his contract

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Kadri was coming off a 100 point season (pace) and a cup he was a major contributor.

EK got a ton of points in losses...Sharks will probably be about the same in terms of team points.

I can't deny the Panthers playoffs but it's a fact they had a poor
regular season and can thank baby Jesus they made the playoffs. Ironically on the back of the Pens being terrible. If the Pens have actually improved the Panthers might struggle to make it. Only 8 spots

Anyway I don't love the trade or player...sue me lol

Karlson won 3 Norris
Kadri had an outlined season
You can expect Norris type season from Karlson. Nobody expected Kadri to repeat except maybe Treliving
But I agreed they are both gambles . We’ll see how it turns out.

[Vinny01]

I don’t think the Pens are contenders but I do think they upgraded this offseason

Karlsson > Petry
Smith > Zucker
Graves > Dumoulin

They have to try and stay relevant for the next 2-4 years while Crosby, Malkin, Letang wind down their careers. Hextall was a tire fire there so I think Dubas did well to gut some of the trash contracts they had and bring in an impact player.

I think the Pens were certainly on the same path the Kings and Hawks before them were on so we will see if this Karlsson deal breathes life into them. When you have a generational core who won 3 cups I understand the desire to try and stay competitive for their entire careers.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

I certainly understand why the Pens did it, but I am closer to dino on where this takes them. Very good chance this leaves them in the mushy middle. A place most on here despise.

So much depends on Sid and Malkin. Point/game is great, but is it realistic they play a full season? That is an incredibly old roster.

You can rebuild for a long time and not get a player as good as 36 yo Sid or 37 yo Geno, let alone two of them.

The rest of the top 9 looks pretty decent for the playoffs. The top 4 has a super high ceiling. Goaltending is a big question mark, but the ceiling is there. It's all a bit patchwork, but not much different than when they won their 3 cups.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Being the GM of the Penguins is not like being the GM of every other team. You have one and only one focus, and that's to do the best job you can to keep the Penguins competitive until Crosby informs you that he is retiring. That's it. There is no rebuilding with Crosby on the team because he is likely to not stick around long enough now. There is no trading Crosby away - Lemieux has only been a Penguin, and Crosby will join him as well. There is value for players of that stature to have only played for your organization.


As for cap space down the road: Who cares? Nobody, that's who.


What matters is the cap space you make today while Crosby is on the roster. You don't care about the cap space tomorrow when he is not. Worrying about that is just strange, especially with the cap going up. This isn't the same situation as Calgary is in. Calgary isn't trying to 'win it for Huberdeau'. A rebuild is a legitimate course of action open for the Flames, trading Huberdeau if there was a good market would be a legitimate move, etc. Trading Crosby? Rebuilding and just watching Crosby play hard 'just to show the kids'? No, that's not a legitimate course of action.


Dubas has to do everything he can to make the Penguins better today, and he accomplished this. He also added cap room while doing so, which blows my mind. No, it does NOT matter that cap gets added later - nobody cares about that as it doesn't matter since we all know that the Penguins will rebuild once Crosby retires, and the cap is set to (dramatically?) increase over the new 4-5 years anyway.



I don't think the Penguins are contenders with this, but they are unquestionably stronger. I would imagine that - barring significant injuries - they make the playoffs. That's all that matters to them for as long as Crosby is an active player in this league.

[Sylvanfan]

Even outside of hockey, you have Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger who started and finished their careers as Steelers and won Championships there. So it's a market where that type of legacy seems to be important to the fans. They could not get it so Lemieux and Jagr could both retire as only Penguins, but they might with Malkin and Crosby. Even with changes in ownership I think it's still something they will strive towards.

But it is an old group of core players so keeping them healthy thru a season is one thing than add in the demands of playoff hockey and no doubt they're betting against the odds.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

You can rebuild for a long time and not get a player as good as 36 yo Sid or 37 yo Geno, let alone two of them.

The rest of the top 9 looks pretty decent for the playoffs. The top 4 has a super high ceiling. Goaltending is a big question mark, but the ceiling is there. It's all a bit patchwork, but not much different than when they won their 3 cups.

I guess we shall see on Sid and Geno. I am not betting against them as talents, but I do question whether they each get 80-90 points (great!) or they total 80-90 points (not great!) due to injury.

As for the rest, I think you could say the same about the Flames. They might be pretty good, or the top guys under perform again and they are in the mushy middle. I guess I don't see the upside of the Pens as much as you do. If things go south, I don't think the Pens have any moves to get out of it.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

As for cap space down the road: Who cares? Nobody, that's who.

What matters is the cap space you make today while Crosby is on the roster. You don't care about the cap space tomorrow when he is not. Worrying about that is just strange, especially with the cap going up. This isn't the same situation as Calgary is in. Calgary isn't trying to 'win it for Huberdeau'. A rebuild is a legitimate course of action open for the Flames, trading Huberdeau if there was a good market would be a legitimate move, etc. Trading Crosby? Rebuilding and just watching Crosby play hard 'just to show the kids'? No, that's not a legitimate course of action.

Dubas has to do everything he can to make the Penguins better today, and he accomplished this. He also added cap room while doing so, which blows my mind. No, it does NOT matter that cap gets added later - nobody cares about that as it doesn't matter since we all know that the Penguins will rebuild once Crosby retires, and the cap is set to (dramatically?) increase over the new 4-5 years anyway.

I don't think the Penguins are contenders with this, but they are unquestionably stronger. I would imagine that - barring significant injuries - they make the playoffs. That's all that matters to them for as long as Crosby is an active player in this league.

This really is the crux of it. Will the Karlsson contract look especially bad in years 3 and 4? Undoubtedly. Will Crosby possibly be retired in years 3 and 4 of the Karlsson contract? Very possibly and that's the point of it.

I think that we all as Pens fans have accepted that once Sid retires this is going to be a bad team for a while. We've known that for a couple of years now and we've accepted it. The rebuild is going to be painful. That was going to be the case regardless of Dubas making this trade, the difference is that for the next season or two, this move puts us in a way better position.

He improved our forward group, he improved our defensive core, and he gave up minimal assets to do so, while also clearing out some anchor contracts that were already ugly now, let alone years down the road. He moved multiple bad contracts (with minimal potential upside) for one bad contract (that has the potential to NOT be a bad contract if Karlsson can perform at a high level).

I'm not planning the cup parade but I'm so much more excited looking at this roster now than the roster we had on June 30th.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Flamesfan05

Karlson won 3 Norris
Kadri had an outlined season
You can expect Norris type season from Karlson. Nobody expected Kadri to repeat except maybe Treliving
But I agreed they are both gambles . We’ll see how it turns out.

I mean Kadri won a cup, scored a hatty in the playoffs and a finals OT winner.

EK put up points on a terrible team while abandoning his position all season. If EK was on a team trying to win there is ZERO chance he wins the Norris last season. Ice time, responsibility, pressure.

[Jason14h]

I would trade Kadri straight up for EK any day of the week based purely on skrill

I may even trade with current contracts and the retained $

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by dino7c

EK put up points on a terrible team while abandoning his position all season.

That's putting it a bit strong. With Karlsson on the ice 5-on-5, according to Bleacher Report, the Sharks scored 96 goals and gave up 96. Without him, if hockey-reference.com got the totals right, they scored 72 and gave up 124.

MoneyPuck gives Karlsson 42.1% of the Sharks' 5-on-5 ice time, but with him on the ice, they scored 57.1% of their 5-on-5 goals and gave up 43.6%. In other words, he was slightly worse defensively than the average Shark, but so much better offensively that he far more than made up for it.

If the Penguins can give him a better D partner than he had on that woeful San Jose team, they won't have to worry about his defensive play that much.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

That's putting it a bit strong. With Karlsson on the ice 5-on-5, according to Bleacher Report, the Sharks scored 96 goals and gave up 96. Without him, if hockey-reference.com got the totals right, they scored 72 and gave up 124.

MoneyPuck gives Karlsson 42.1% of the Sharks' 5-on-5 ice time, but with him on the ice, they scored 57.1% of their 5-on-5 goals and gave up 43.6%. In other words, he was slightly worse defensively than the average Shark, but so much better offensively that he far more than made up for it.

If the Penguins can give him a better D partner than he had on that woeful San Jose team, they won't have to worry about his defensive play that much.

He was -26, with on-ice even strength goals for of 110 and even strength goals against of 126 (and 11 short-handed goas against, which shouldn't be ignored)

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

He was -26, with on-ice even strength goals for of 110 and even strength goals against of 126 (and 11 short-handed goas against, which shouldn't be ignored)

Even strength includes empty net situations where Karlsson went 7-4 against the empty net and 4-21 with the empty net....

If we want to hold shorthanded goals against against Karlsson's results maybe we should look at all strengths?

Sharks were 150 gf- 139 ga with Karlsson on the ice in all situations. Timo Meir only other Shark in the positive.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Even outside of hockey, you have Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger who started and finished their careers as Steelers and won Championships there. So it's a market where that type of legacy seems to be important to the fans. They could not get it so Lemieux and Jagr could both retire as only Penguins, but they might with Malkin and Crosby. Even with changes in ownership I think it's still something they will strive towards.

But it is an old group of core players so keeping them healthy thru a season is one thing than add in the demands of playoff hockey and no doubt they're betting against the odds.

Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Bill Mazeroski too. They have a good history as a city of keeping their legends around, save for Jagr. They even brought Andrew McCutchen back.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

He was -26, with on-ice even strength goals for of 110 and even strength goals against of 126 (and 11 short-handed goas against, which shouldn't be ignored)

That number also includes 4-on-4 and 3-on-3. The Sharks were 5-11 in games decided in OT, which says less about any individual player and more about how awful the whole team was. And as Oil Stain points out, plus/minus includes empty-net situations, another area where all the Sharks stunk.

The fact remains that 5-on-5, he was roughly as bad defensively as his whole team was. That's pretty bad, but it would be inaccurate to say that he was dragging them down. If he was abandoning his position for the sake of offence, then logically, all the Sharks' D were doing the same thing – except they weren't getting the offence.

Put him on a better team with decent goaltending, and don't lean on him for 25 minutes a night, and I suspect he'll do OK. He certainly won't look as bad as when he was the lone trapeze artist in a three-ring clown show.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Acquired Karlsson and dumped Granlund/Petry, all while retaining Yager. That’s great GMing.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Acquired Karlsson and dumped Granlund/Petry, all while retaining Yager. That’s great GMing.

We don't know who they lost with the 1st and 2nd picks yet though

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I mean Kadri won a cup, scored a hatty in the playoffs and a finals OT winner.

EK put up points on a terrible team while abandoning his position all season. If EK was on a team trying to win there is ZERO chance he wins the Norris last season. Ice time, responsibility, pressure.

Erik Karlsson is still Erik Karlsson.

If he was still intact, he’d be on Norris 5 or 6 by now.

But he’s missing part of his foot and his Achilles was Cooke’d.

Adding him to the Penguins is like bringing on Kessel - it’s not going to be the reason things don’t work, but it might be the reason they do.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Erik Karlsson is still Erik Karlsson.

If he was still intact, he’d be on Norris 5 or 6 by now.

But he’s missing part of his foot and his Achilles was Cooke’d.

Adding him to the Penguins is like bringing on Kessel - it’s not going to be the reason things don’t work, but it might be the reason they do.

Well, this one is more farfetched and also more costly. Kessel joined the team when Crosby and Malkin were in their prime (also they had great goaltending and a deeper team), plus he was only 28, plus he was only being paid $6.8 by the Pens.

But yes, this trade is part of their last gasp plan with their aging big guns. I doubt it will work because the team just isn’t a contender even with him.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Well, this one is more farfetched and also more costly. Kessel joined the team when Crosby and Malkin were in their prime (also they had great goaltending and a deeper team), plus he was only 28, plus he was only being paid $6.8 by the Pens.

But yes, this trade is part of their last gasp plan with their aging big guns. I doubt it will work because the team just isn’t a contender even with him.

I understand they’re not straight-across the same situation, but it’s all-or-nothing for the Penguins. They already paid to keep the band together - no point cheaping out now.

Karlsson is the most elite, dynamic player they could acquire. It cost them virtually nothing in terms of assets, the term isn’t horrible, and if nothing else, Crosby/Malkin/Karlsson keeps them in the playoffs (assuming health).

It wasn’t long ago Karlsson could barely skate backwards - there were highlights of him looking like a beer leaguer trying to change directions.

And now he’s the reigning Norris winner. I admire the comeback. He doesn’t make them worse.

Dubas’s next move should be a full-court press to get Hellebuyck, because they’re for sure not winning it all on the back of Tristan Jarry.