Modifié 16 nov. 2022 à 20 h 22
Quoting: aadoyle
Its gonna be interesting to see where EK ends up
While he is producting there are some problems we need to acknowledge
1. Injury History
https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/erik-karlsson-player-injuries
2. Cap hit
Is San Jose really willing to retain 50% for 4.5 years as no competitors will go yeah we will take the entire cap hit.
3. Age
How many good years is said team getting before he becomes an issue or anchor
Majority of Karlsson's injury history is lower body injuries. Now, assuming that doesn't mean knee injuries, those are sustainable, he can return to full health from this sort of injury bug.
Karlsson is 32 with four and a half years left on his contract. That means he'd be 37 at the end of the contract. Not an impossible feat, there's plenty of examples who have been able to play at relatively solid level even at that age.
Imo the cap hit the biggest issue. Don't see any way of SJ retaining 50%, but it's not unheard of teams retaining up to 15-25% of a contract in order to make it feasible for other teams. Naturally due to EK's contract being so massive cap wise, SJ is likely required to eat some bad contracts, effectively making the deal Ekman-Larsson trade esque.
Now if you wanted me to name you a team that might look into Karlsson, I'd take a gander at Pittsburgh or Washington. These teams have assets to "dump" to SJ to create that needed cap space, and are in need to strengthen their team to make their cup window wider. Karlsson's term coincide relatively well with the likes of Crosby and Ovechkin, and the RHD core of Karlsson, Letang and Petry / Karlsson, Carlson and Jensen look extremely strong.
Pens could offer SJ Zucker and Kapanen, maybe Joseph to boot, alongside few picks to make the cap work if SJ retain 15-20% of EK's contract. With WSH it gets a bit trickier, but Eller is definitely in play, as well as futures. In order for that to work though, Bäckström can not come back.
Still, if I was a betting man and I had full knowledge that SJ plans to sell Karlsson and he agrees to being moved, I'd bet on Erik Karlsson being a Penguin a year from now.