Fact or Fiction: Erik Karlsson edition

Erik Karlsson — Photo via GETTY

The Penguins’ acquisition of Erik Karlsson last August was the franchise’s most exciting player transaction since trading for Phil Kessel in 2015.

How could it not be?

Karlsson was coming off a 2022-23 campaign in which he did something no NHL defenseman had accomplished since 1992: record 100+ points in a season. He became just the sixth defenseman in history to do so.

It’s a secret to exactly no one that Karlsson had free reign to do anything and everything that would help him be as productive as possible on a basement-dwelling Sharks team. That wasn’t to be the expectation with the Penguins.

Even so, bringing in the best offensive defenseman of this generation is exciting. Bringing in a future Hall of Famer is exciting — and not in the acquiring 40-year-old Patrick Marleau kind of way, either.

And to acquire him in what was the real-life equivalent of a video-game trade? Yeah, everyone was jacked up.

Yet, 68 games into his Penguins career, he’s become the most divisive player on the team.

Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising. A freshly-obtained $10 million annual cap hit is destined to be under the microscope on any team that disappoints as much as the Penguins have this season.

Some believe Karlsson has been outstanding, others believe he’s been utterly horrendous. Some believe his weaknesses and deficiencies vastly outweigh his strengths, others believe the scale tips on the opposite side.

What’s reality? Let’s play a game of Fact or Fiction to find out.

Karlsson is a defensive liability

This is a fact.

Entering this season, Karlsson graded out as one of the worst defensive defensemen in the NHL dating back to 2020.

Here’s what I wrote about Karlsson’s defense in my season preview:

“He makes a lot of strong defensive plays that help turn the puck over or exit the zone, but he is not a strong in-zone defender and he does occasionally get burned for trying to push the pace offensively.”

I stand by all of it. What I did not include (and had yet to fully grasp) was that he also gets burned somewhat regularly for doing wildly-frustrating things that don’t have anything to do with pushing the pace offensively.

That’s not being too aggressive or shying away from blocking a shot. That’s puck-watching at its finest.