While the San Jose Sharks haven’t had a lot of positives early this season, one storyline to be optimistic about is defenseman Erik Karlsson's potential resurgence.
With Brent Burns being traded to the Carolina Hurricanes this summer, it was expected that a lot of pressure would fall onto Karlsson. While he’s only playing about one minute more per game at even strength as compared to last season, it’s no secret the Sharks have a weak blue line, with the only other defenseman on the team really capable of providing a positive impact in a large role being Mario Ferraro.
We know Karlsson isn’t going to be flawless defensively, sometimes being a bit weak on pucks and prone to mistakes. To provide an impact for the Sharks, he needs to offset those mistakes with his offensive output, which hasn’t always been the case over the last couple years.
This season though, Karlsson has been great for the Sharks, with six goals and 11 points. Not only does he lead the Sharks in both categories through the first 11 games of the season, but he’s also the league leader amongst defensemen in both goals and points.
He remains a great skater and one of the best playmaking defensemen in the league, providing offense for a team that can’t score a lot of goals. Especially with the slow start for San Jose’s top forwards (Karlsson has as many goals and Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Timo Meier and Alexander Barabanov combined), the Sharks are probably in an even worse spot early in the season if not for Karlsson.
It’s a positive start, given the last few years haven’t exactly gone according to plan for the defenseman.
During his time in Ottawa, Karlsson managed a pace of at least 70 points per 82 games in four of his last five seasons with the Senators, between 2013-14 and 2017-18. Since coming to the Sharks though, this hasn’t been the case, with his points per 82 pace slipping as shown below:
Advanced stats point to a really positive start as well, with a 53.5 corsi for percentage at even strength, which leads all Sharks’ defensemen by quite a margin. It’s also an improvement compared to his 49.6 corsi for percentage (ES) from last season.
Even Karlsson’s minus-2 rating, for what it’s worth, looks a lot better than pretty much any other regular defenseman on the team, many of whom sit at minus-5 or worse. It’s a small stat but through only 11 games, does tell a bit of a story.
While Karlsson has been great though, it doesn’t really mean things are turning around for the Sharks. As expected, they’re a poor team and will probably remain a poor team in the immediate future. There’s also no guarantee that Karlsson will remain healthy, given his injury history to this point.
But Karlsson’s play – if he can sustain it – could provide options for the Sharks. He still has four years remaining on his contract after the current season, carrying an $11.5 million cap hit. For a few years, the deal has been viewed as immovable, based on Karlsson’s decline. However, if this really is a sustainable resurgence for the defenseman, it at least opens the door to try and move him. It would almost surely require salary being retained (and the defenseman also has a full no-movement clause that he’d need to waive), but there’d be the possibility of being able to flip him to gather future assets and clear cap space.
Even if not, Karlsson at his best helps the Sharks to be much more competitive. While it doesn’t mean much now, as San Jose is able to integrate young talent down the road, an improved Karlsson would go a long way to helping San Jose get back into the playoff picture.
It’s a small sample size but so far, this is the best Karlsson has looked in a long time.
San Jose Sharks Blogger • 
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