Norris Trophy. Hundred and one points. First-ballot Hall of Famer.
There. Just made the case for Erik Karlsson to Pittsburgh. And, like one of his characteristically carefree shifts in the defensive zone, I barely broke a sweat.
But hey, if that's somehow not sufficient ...
That's from Karlsson's most recent game in Pittsburgh, conveniently enough, back on Jan. 28, and it might as well be his brilliant career in a capsule, right?
It begins with Karlsson pinning Drew O'Connor against the end boards, waiting for a teammate to help, then somehow coolly emerging with possession while everyone else is still searching for the puck. He skates ahead, sees an outlet, keeps skating after the outlet, recollects the puck in the neutral zone, gains the attacking blue line, dishes again, disappears in a crowd and, aware that the period's seconds away from ending, rushes the net to present his blade for maybe the easiest of his 178 NHL goals and 761 points.
Need more?
Didn't think so.
So I'll instead steer this week's Drive to discussing my three reasons why Karlsson would be such a spectacularly welcome addition to these Penguins:
1. MAN, THEY NEED HIM
OK, I'm still in insultingly obvious territory. There are 32 teams for which this statement applies.
But there aren't many teams with a scoring gap between forwards and defense like the Penguins have: Although they finished the 2022-23 regular season 16th in the NHL with 261 overall goals, only 30 came from defensemen, 26th in the league. Goals aren't a tell-all when it comes to defensive skill and/or mobility, but they're a pretty fair weathervane: Kris Letang's 41 points ranked 32nd among the league defensemen, Jeff Petry's 31 points ranked 60th. Next-highest were, um, Brian Dumoulin's 24 points all the way down at 79th, then Marcus Pettersson's 24 points at 85th.
One didn't need to catch much of the most recent Stanley Cup playoffs to see that it was Brandon Montour, Shea Theodore and those types who'd come up with some of the clutchiest goals, not to mention all the underlying metrics that support their broader performance effects. They'd rev up from the back, finish in the front. And as a result, the strongest rosters, certainly in the East with the conference finalist Panthers and Hurricanes, were those that reaped rich, consistent production from the back.
Who's doing any of that here?
Letang and Petry, respectfully, are in their mid-30s. That contributed, no doubt, to the former missing 18 games this past season and to the latter missing 21. Counting on them to stay at the same level, much less upgrading production, feels wishful. Or worse. Pettersson was solid, but I don't know of additional offensive gears in his repertoire. Same with Ryan Graves, P.O Joseph, Jan Rutta, Mark Friedman, Chad Ruhwedel or, for that matter, the lone offensive defense prospect, Ty Smith.
2. IT'S NOT JUST POINTS
It's fun to recall when Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin could scoop up the puck in the Pittsburgh end, carry it coast to coast, and create electric offense. Every once in a while, they'll still pull it off.
But to expect those two, as well as the four wingers on their lines -- only Jake Guentzel, 28, is younger than 30 -- to pull it off regularly would be outright delusional. It won't happen. And, at least as I see it, hoping that it'll happen could be more crushing to this team's chances than any other call Kyle Dubas or Mike Sullivan make as it applies to constructing 5v5 offense.
To put this into Sullivan's preferred parlance, the forwards and defensemen on this roster need to stick closer together, and doubly when it comes to the attack.
Translating further: They need tight, controlled, systematic breakouts. Or all that living-legend skill up front will again languish idly between the blue lines.
Take a wild guess at who'd offer a transformational boost in this facet.
Yep, according to the Montreal-based hockey analytics company Sportlogiq, Karlsson was the NHL's second-most efficient defenseman at 5v5 within what they call controlled zone exits this past season, succeeding 76.3% of the time, and trailing only the criminally under-appreciated Roman Josi with an insane 92.5%. That rate takes into account any zone exit in which the defenseman either connects on a pass to a teammate out of the zone, or the defenseman carries it out himself.
And get this: In that latter column, Karlsson carries it out himself 19.8 times for every 60 minutes of his team's on-ice action. Next-highest was John Klingberg all the way down at 16.3. Dude doesn't even need to make that pass.
Taking this onto the attack, also per Sportlogiq -- buckle up for all this -- Karlsson at 5v5 ranked fifth among all defensemen in offensive zone possession time, third in completed passes into the slot, fourth in total offense-generating plays and, in the mother of all who's-got-time-to-track-stuff-like-this stats ... seventh in offensive-zone dekes!
Think a player of that caliber couldn't raise the Penguins' entire process? Including that of the existing stars?
3. THE POWER PLAY
Don't make me be the guy who blurts out that the current, longstanding PP1 group needs to be shaken up, if not broken up.
It's a gross over-simplification to point to Todd Reirden's futile work at the dry-erase board, and it's flat-out silly to point to age as it applies to anyone's power play. But the cold fact remains that any top unit that's got Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Guentzel and Rickard Rakell and still ranks only 14th in the NHL at 21.7 percent -- while also coughing up countless short-handed chances -- isn't doing it right.
What's the answer?
I've got no more clue than any of them, but I do know this: Neither Sullivan nor anyone else will pry any of those first four names off PP1, regardless of how apparently clunky the chemistry's become. Nothing will change.
Unless ... well, it's not as if they'd have Karlsson sit and watch.
Look I won't take this one too far. If anything it'd merit a Drive unto itself. But Karlsson was able to share an eye-popping power-play point alignment with Brent Burns in San Jose, so I'm plenty confident he could do so here with Letang. I'm equally confident that Malkin could move up front since, you know, he's had some experience at center. But the rest of the roles ... yeah, let's revisit this one.
For the moment, I'm in favor of something else. And it might take a name as massive as Karlsson's to move the pieces as needed.
This is the player. This is the opportunity. And my goodness, is this ever the right time in franchise history. Either take the pursuit of one final Cup seriously, or don't pretend anything to the contrary.
