Let’s have a little fun today pushing the Penguins chips into the middle. The Penguins need some game breakers to help Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as they age. You only need two to three years of help at this point. People are rightly focused on bringing in another forward, especially with Jason Zucker’s status up in the air as a pending unrestricted free agent. What if the Penguins juiced up their offensive production by effectively adding a “fourth forward” on the ice. A player who got 100 points last season from a team looking to move him. Normally, the price for such an acquisition would be through the roof. Here, not so much.
The player is Erik Karlsson
The Sharks haven’t been aggressive about weaponizing cap space, but this summer could be the right time for that to change. First, San Jose has finally embraced the rebuild it was long avoiding. Second, the club is motivated to find a trade partner for Erik Karlsson.
The Sharks would likely have to retain a chunk of Karlsson’s $11.5 million cap hit, but getting the majority of his deal off the books would open up a lot of wiggle room.
Erik Karlsson has four more years left at an 11.5M cap hit. It is a ton of money. He also put up 100 points as a defenseman just last year.
First, I’m not worried about the term here. I believe Karlsson is going to give at least two more years of great play. Not necessarily the 2022-23 version (maybe?), but it doesn’t have to be. The team is in desperate need of finding more players to create offense. Erik Karlsson is in the 100th percentile of doing just that. He scored 25 goals last year. You would think the power play was the driving force, it was not. He had 20 even-strength goals. Out of his 101 points 74 came at even-strength. His 2.3 points per 60 at 5v5 ranked first among defensemen. Josh Morrissey was second best at 1.63 among players at 1,000 minutes last year. Looking to bolster offensive production and make the forwards job easier? Having a one-two punch of Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson does it.
As for the cap hit, there are a few ways you can go about managing the number. The first is to bribe the San Jose Sharks. Using the 14th overall pick to acquire an elite offensive producing defenseman who fits the team’s timeline seems like an OK use of the asset given their stated goals. The first-round pick is buying salary retention into a single digit AAV to make things manageable. Is the 14th overall pick going to get 80 or more points next season? I didn’t think so. The 14th overall pick is likely to never help Crosby, Malkin, and Letang which makes it a non-starter to select a player with it. There are many ways you can use the 14th overall pick in a trade. How many give you a true game breaker?
Another way to mitigate the cap hit is to pay the Sharks with the first-round pick, get less salary retention (if any) and have them eat Jeff Petry and/or Mikael Granlund. I would personally leave Mikael Granlund out of this and just buy him out as to not devalue the first-round pick. Sliding a slightly retained Karlsson in for Petry is quite an upgrade and with a Granlund buyout a very feasible option.
There are going to be people who don’t want to take a risk like this on a 33-year-old player. For most franchises it would be misguided. For the Penguins? This is who they are now. This is the aggressiveness needed. You don’t need to be worried about 4-5 years down the road. This is the final stand. It’s like being in a 2-2 count trailing by 3 with the bases loaded late in the game with your best hitter at the plate. You can work things for the walk, but the walk ain’t moving the needle anymore. Your best hitter is up right now. You have to take your best shot at things. It isn’t a guarantee to work, nothing is. Take the shot. The opportunity to maximize risk reward gets worse and worse because time is running out.
Taking the shot doesn’t mean it has to specifically be Erik Karlsson, either. This is just one example of being bold to improve the team in their short window. You might be someone who wants to take the shot at a goalie with the #14 overall pick. Perhaps you want to use it on a forward. There are definitely options to be had. Point being, take a shot somewhere even if there is perceived risk.
Although, what exactly are they risking? They aren’t jeopardizing prospects or a rebuild. The bottom has to fall out eventually to properly rebuild in this league. No better way to bottom out than to hit the cap floor with aging veterans while playing a bunch of young players down the line. Being aggressive is either going to put a fun product on the ice that is fun to watch as we watch Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang play out their final years. It might even involve winning a few playoff rounds. If it blows up in their face at least you tried and now you can speed up the rebuild timeframe.
Half-measures need not apply to the Penguins. Time to go all-in is now. Go do something fun with the #14 overall pick.
Thanks for reading!
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