August 10, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Pittsburgh Penguins landed Erik Karlsson on Sunday in a massive three team trade that made waves around the NHL. Karlsson and Kris Letang give Pittsburgh two of the best right-handed offensive defencemen in the NHL. We’ve seen this movie with Karlsson before. Karlsson and Brent Burns gave the Sharks a similar claim to boast when Karlsson arrived there in 2018-19. Their time together saw both players decline and the team suffer. Burns was traded away last summer, and he increased his offensive output by seven points over his last season in San Jose; and Karlsson exploded for 101 points, the highest scoring season by a defenceman since Brian Leetch’s 1991-92 campaign. Aqcuiring the reigning Norris Trophy winner always feels like a smart move; but given how things went in San Jose when mixing two elite offensive right-handed defencemen together, it’s fair to question the merit of this trade for Kyle Dubas and the Penguins.

Per the Penguins, here is the trade. SJ retains $1.5M of Karlsson’s salary…Pittsburgh retains 25 per cent of Petry’s. pic.twitter.com/gxQSKSNZoi

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 6, 2023

The Karlsson and Burns experiment worked well in its first year in 2018-19. The Sharks tied for second in the league in goals scored, the powerplay ranked sixth in the league, they finished second in the Pacific Division, and made it to the Western Conference Finals. Things went South after that though. The Sharks fell all the way to the bottom of the Pacific Division in 2019-20. It didn’t get much better for the team as they finished second last in the Western Division in 2021 and third last in the Pacific Division in 2021-22. 

It’s hardly fair to blame Karlsson and Burns for the downfall of the Sharks’s empire. Joe Pavelski left the team prior to the 2019-20 season, which was the first year where they were terrible. They essentially lost Joe Thornton that season as well. His production dipped from 51 points in 73 games in 2018-19 to 31 points in 70 games in 2019-20. That was the beginning of the end for Jumbo Joe. The Sharks weren’t adequately prepared to handle those two losses, and the team suffered. Interestingly enough, Martin Jones had identical .896 save percentages in 2018-19 and 2019-20 for the Sharks, but his goals against average went from 2.96 to 3.00 in those seasons.

Burns enjoyed his highest scoring season in the NHL in his first year with Karlsson, 83 points in 82 games. Meanwhile, Karlsson experienced a slight dip of 0.2 points per game from his last season in Ottawa to his first in San Jose. Burns’s production fell to 45 points in 70 games in 2019-20, and Karlsson’s fell to 40 points in 56 games. It didn’t get better than that for either player over the rest of their time together in San Jose.

My initial hypothesis was that they cannibalized each other’s production. It’s hard to say whether or not that’s true. Their declines could be the result of poor team play. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the performance of both players declined during their time together. For what it’s worth, Burns and Karlsson each had two seasons where they had the higher points per game average of the two. They weren’t ever playing at their highest level at the same time. One of them was always suffering. As soon as Burns was traded away, both players experienced an offensive surge.

Perhaps this information will serve as foreshadowing for how Karlsson and Letang’s production will fare together over time. The drastic nature of Karlsson’s offensive explosion last season after Burns was moved was a clear statment to me that Karlsson was living in Burns’s shadow in San Jose. The stage was cleared for Karlsson to shine, and he shone brightly. It was a rebuilding year and Karlsson was easily their most dangerous weapon. It seemed like the coaching staff just gave him the green light to make things happen because that was one of the few ways the team was going to be able to score goals. Now, Karlsson will once again be sharing the stage on the blue line with Letang.

It’s pretty clear that this is a last ditch effort to get the Crosby era Penguins another Cup. Karlsson has four years left on his contract. Crosby has two years left, and Malkin has three years left. Crosby will be about a month shy of his 38th birthday when his contract expires, and Malkin will be 39 years old when his contract expires. 

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This feels eerily similar to the situation in San Jose when Karlsson arrived. The team lost its two best forwards in the second year of Karlsson’s tenure. Crosby and Malkin are playing at a ridiculously high level for players of their age, so I don’t see this experiment with the Penguins crumbling as quickly as it did for the Sharks. However, the Penguins need to make this experiment worthwhile by winning a Stanley Cup in the next two years. The Penguins core is aging quickly, and they only have a couple legitimate kicks at the can before time runs out.

Will it work out for them? Karlsson rounds out a stellar top four that includes Letang, Ryan Graves, and Marcus Pettersson. Jake Guentzel being out really hurts their top end scoring, but Rielly Smith will alleviate some of that pain. They made a couple of nice depth additions in Lars Eller and Noel Acciari. Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedelkjovic form an intriguing goaltending tandem. The Penguins will need more from both players to win it all, but both are capable of more. The Eastern Conference is wide open this year with Patrice Bergeron’s retirement and the Tampa Bay Lightning being victimized by the salary cap. I see the Penguins getting into the playoffs, but not winning their division. Anything can happen once the playoffs roll around.