‘He’s a special player’: Can Erik Karlsson deliver another Stanley Cup to the Penguins?

CRANBERRY, Pa. — Sidney Crosby couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

He knew the Pittsburgh Penguins were going to do something dramatic in the offseason after missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons. The team’s management, including new president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas, would occasionally let Crosby in on their plans during the summer, including potential trade targets. Which was only appropriate, given that any moves they made were in service of sliding a fourth Stanley Cup ring onto the captain’s hand.

During one conversation with Crosby, the Penguins mentioned they were pursuing a rather intriguing name: San Jose Sharks star defenseman Erik Karlsson.

“I was just excited, you know? He’s a special player,” Crosby told ESPN. “But you try to manage your expectations. I mean, it was far from happening. I think three teams that were in on it. I was hearing Carolina. I was hearing Seattle. So I didn’t get my hopes up too much.”

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was collaborating with Dubas on ways to reshape the team around Crosby. He didn’t expect Erik Karlsson to be an option.

“We felt we needed a legitimate top-four defenseman. We felt like that was a priority that we needed to address in order to put our team in a better position to contend,” he said. “I didn’t envision acquiring the Norris Trophy winner. I didn’t see that one coming. For me to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, I expect to get a player like Erik Karlsson’ … I’d be lying to you if I told you that.”

Crosby understood the obstacles in acquiring Karlsson. Could the Penguins outbid other suitors? Could they make the necessary financial moves to create the salary cap space for Karlsson’s considerable contract: $11.5 million against the salary cap through 2026-27? Would Karlsson waive his full no-movement clause for a trade to Pittsburgh?

That last obstacle was in fact the simplest to traverse.

“I’ve been pretty transparent about it: This was a hockey decision and nothing else. And if you view it that way, then there’s not been many better places, I think, than being a part of the Pittsburgh Penguins,” Karlsson told ESPN. “I mean, I battled these guys my whole career. I don’t think that they have to sell me on anything.”

On Aug. 6, a three-team trade between the Penguins, Sharks and Montreal Canadiens took care of the cap complications and delivered Karlsson to Pittsburgh. A three-time Norris Trophy winner, with 761 points in 921 career games with Ottawa and San Jose. The player that could not only lead the Penguins back to the postseason, but potentially to another Stanley Cup celebration.

If all of this works, of course.

CROSBY AND KARLSSON have had a peculiar friendship through the years.

The Penguins and Senators engaged in some epic battles. That included three playoff series, with their 2017 Eastern Conference final decided in Game 7 on a double-overtime goal by former Penguin Chris Kunitz.

“We fought hard. We both tried to beat each other and each other’s teams. But think we each had respect for each other too, whether we were winners or losers,” Karlsson said of Crosby. “Unfortunately, he came out on top a little bit too many times, so maybe it was easier on his part.”

For Crosby, Karlsson wasn’t just a fierce opponent. For whatever reason, they clicked on a personal level, despite never having been teammates.

“Yeah, it’s funny. I’m not a guy that likes to chat a ton on the ice. He’s just a pretty chatty guy out there. I always end up chatting with him for some reason, right from his early days in Ottawa, and then I’d see him at league events and stuff like that,” Crosby said. “He’s just a great guy. Really easy-going. But it was funny: When he first came into the league, I always ended up having the odd convo with him, which is pretty rare for me. So I feel like I’ve known him for longer than I have.”

The player forever known as “Sid The Kid” is 36 years old and in his 19th season. His hair now has some stately gray in it — not the full Ovechkin, but just enough to signify the passage of time. His last Stanley Cup win was in 2017, and the Penguins have only won a single playoff round since then, including their postseason miss in 2022-23.

For other franchises, this lack of championship success with an aging roster — the average age of the 2023-24 Penguins is 30.8 years old, highest in the NHL — would have meant the end of an era. But this rule didn’t apply to a team with Crosby still putting up 93 points in 82 games.

When Dubas was hired this summer, after a public falling out with the Toronto Maple Leafs, his task was to both build towards a post-Crosby era while maximizing the current core’s window to win.

Two years ago, it looked like that core might be demolished. Both center Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang were unrestricted free agents. But Pittsburgh retained them both on multi-year contracts — to the delight of Crosby — and sought to build a new contender around this holy hockey trinity.

Letang, 36, remains one of the NHL’s best puck-moving defensemen, and skated 24:51 per game last season in 64 appearances. Karlsson arrives having tallied 101 points in 82 games to win the Norris, skating 25:37 per contest.

“They both think the game extremely well. I think Karlsson may try to beat guys one-on-one a little bit more, things like that. Whereas Tanger really utilizes the guys around him,” said defenseman Ryan Graves, who left New Jersey for the Penguins as a free agent. “At the same time, they create space themselves. They create space for other players in the ice. They move the puck north to south, move the puck south to north very quickly. There’s some similarities in their games.”

One of the great mysteries about adding Karlsson to the Penguins is how it’ll impact Letang, both in ice time and effectiveness.

Because this isn’t the first time Erik Karlsson has walked into a new dressing room to find a stall occupied by a franchise defenseman.

BRENT BURNS WAS in his eighth season in San Jose when the Sharks traded for Karlsson in 2017.

During their four seasons together in San Jose, there was a cottage industry of speculation about their relationship off the ice, to the point where Karlsson was asked about it three minutes into his introductory press conference in Pittsburgh.

There was scrutiny over how they were deployed, both in who they played with and in what situation. There was a disparity in their power-play time, where Karlsson’s average ice time was higher than Burns’s in three of those four seasons as teammates.

Burns was eventually traded to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2022. Where it was coincidence or not, Karlsson had his greatest offense season in San Jose after Burns left.

“I don’t think we had a strained relationship. We became really good friends right away. Our personal friendship is something that I still cherish to this day and we still stay in touch,” Karlsson said of Burns. “Unfortunately, we stopped winning games there and that’s when those questions come into play. I think the situation, and how it unfolded [in San Jose] is hopefully going to be a lot different than it will be here. But only time can tell.”

Sullivan has had to think about the presence of two alpha defensemen on the same roster and what he has to do to manage them.

“We’re well aware of the experience that went on in San Jose,” the coach said. “We’ve been very proactive with discussions with both Erik and Kris about how we’re going to try to utilize both of them and set them both up for success.”

The plan is to have one of Karlsson or Letang on the ice every time Crosby or Malkin are out there. Sullivan noted that power-play time was “very important to star players,” and that Karlsson and Letang are no exception. The Penguins hoped to use both defensemen on the same power-play unit to start the season, but Sullivan said there would other options if that configuration doesn’t produce.

Dubas, who took on the Penguins’ general manager role along being with team president, said he’s confident the Penguins will find the right mix for Karlsson on special teams.

“I don’t have a whole lot of questions personally as to how Erik is going to fit on the power play with the group,” Dubas said. “Erik’s the type of player who instinctually is going to make it fit and work. Everyone is not going to have to adjust to him. He’s going to get the most out of others as he facilitates.”

There’s another sense of déjà vu for Karlsson with this new team. Burns was part of an established core in San Jose that included Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Patrick Marleau and Logan Couture. Karlsson finds a core in Pittsburgh that’s equally entrenched.

Sullivan said the challenge for him and the team is to make Karlsson feel like he’s part of the Penguins’ foundation, rather than an add-on.

“As I said to Erik, this core has been established for a long time. We don’t want Erik to come in and feel his way through,” Sullivan said. “We want him to become part of that core right away. We think his body of work is earned that.”

“Sid and Geno and Tanger, they welcomed the addition of Erik on our team because they all have an insatiable appetite to win another Stanley Cup and they know adding him to our lineup makes us a much better hockey team,” the coach said. “But we’ll continue to communicate with these guys. I’m sure there’s going to be a feeling out process and there’ll be some bumps in the road, but we’ll work through them.”

Karlsson said his experience with Burns showed that perceptions can be shaped by the standings.

“I think a lot of it’s obviously going to rely on hockey, how well we do and how many games we win.,” he said. “If that’s the case, then you guys have nothing to write about and everything will be green on the other side of the fence.”

SPEAKING OF PERCEPTIONS, does Erik Karlsson play defense?

Because for the majority of his career, fairly or unfairly, the perception has been that he’s neglected his defensive game in favor of his point totals.

The NHL began tracking plus/minus in the 1959-60 season. Since that time, no defenseman has won the Norris Trophy with a worse rating than Karlsson’s minus-26 in 2022-23. Despite his offensively dominant season — his 101 points were the most by a defenseman since Brian Leetch in the 1991-92 season — Karlsson received only 80.9% of the total vote points from the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Four voters didn’t have Karlsson among their top five defensemen last season.

Mario Ferraro played with Karlsson on the Sharks and always heard that knock on his game. “I think it’s false. I think how good his offense is makes him a very good defensive player,” Ferraro said.

He said Karlsson’s ability to break the puck out of the zone and keep possession offensively “a part of playing defense” in the NHL.

“His skating ability is second to none. So it makes him have the ability to have good gaps in the offensive zone and in the neutral zone and chase down players and not let guys get wide on him,” Ferraro said. “So I actually think he’s a very good defensive player because of how good he is offensively.”

Penguins forward Matt Nieto, who played with Karlsson in San Jose as well, echoed that defense of Karlsson’s defense.

“I honestly think his defense is very underrated. I mean, you really don’t see him get beat a lot because of his skating ability,” Nieto said. “He’s got a really good stick. But I think what sets him apart from most [defensemen] is that he’s almost impossible to forecheck. He rarely spends time in his end.”

While Sullivan agreed that criticism of Karlsson’s defense has been overstated, he does expect aspects of the Norris Trophy winner’s game to improve now that he’s with the Penguins and associate coach Todd Reirden, who works primarily with the team’s defensemen.

“We’ve watched him a fair amount through the process when we were acquiring him,” Sullivan said. “And I think there are areas of his game where we can help him and challenge him to grow defensively.”

The Penguins coach said he had several conversations about Karlsson with his friend David Quinn, head coach of the Sharks. He said they’re aligned on what Karlsson needs to do to improve his overall game.

“When you have a player like Erik that just commands the puck as much as it does when he’s on the ice, you spend a whole lot less time defending. So there’s an element of that part of his game,” Sullivan said. “But as far as his play away from the puck, I just don’t subscribe to that narrative that he can’t defend. I know he’s very capable. We’re going to challenge him to grow.”

REFINING THE DEFENSIVE game of a 33-year-old Norris winner aside, the biggest challenge for Karlsson and the Penguins is prying their championship window wide enough to grab another Stanley Cup for the franchise — and a first one for Karlsson.

While he’s accomplished much in his career, Karlsson has never played for the Cup, let alone won it. He’s been to the conference final twice, with Ottawa in 2017 and San Jose in 2019. Both times, the team that eliminated him — Pittsburgh and St. Louis — went on to lift the Cup.

Karlsson was wilting on the vine while the Sharks entered a rebuild. He loved living in the Bay Area. But he wanted to play for a contender again before it was too late.

“I’ve been pretty open about the whole situation, and that’s exactly what it was. I’m not doing this for anything other than winning games and having a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup,” Karlsson said. “And as you get older, you start feeling that window is closing faster and faster. I think I’m at a point in my career now where I still have a lot of years left in me. Where I can be productive and be a leading part of a winning team. I felt like now was the best time for me to see if I could explore that, and I’m thankful that it worked out the way it did.”

Nieto believes that the change in scenery, and competitive goals, is going to be transformative for Karlsson.

“I think it’s going to be huge for him,” he said. “We demand a lot out of each other in this group. We’re not here just to try to make the playoffs. We’re here to win the Cup.”

Karlsson is not a cure-all for the Penguins:

• They’re still a team that hasn’t made it past the first round since 2017-18.

• They’re still a team that can’t hold a lead, as was evidenced by the Chicago Blackhawks‘ comeback win on opening night. They were tied with the New York Rangers last season with nine losses after leading into the second period. The Penguins had just a .585 winning percentage when scoring the game’s first goal (22nd in the NHL).

• They’re still a team that, even with an improved blue line, will succeed or fail on the play of their goaltending. Dubas signed Tristan Jarry to a five-year contract extension last summer. He has a career .914 save percentage and a 2.65 goals-against average in the regular season. In the postseason, those numbers dropped to .891 save percentage and a 3.00 goals-against average.

But Karlsson makes them better. Maybe even good enough to win Crosby, Malkin and Letang their fourth Stanley Cup. Maybe good enough where Karlsson can finally lift one himself.

“I’ve been in the league for 15 years. It’s a long time. And every year I play for the same thing, just like the other 800 guys in this league do. I’ve come somewhat close a couple of times, but not close enough to be able to really have a chance at it,” Karlsson said. “I don’t think there’s a better place to try and accomplish that than with this group in Pittsburgh.”