Complicated Karlsson trade is worth the risk
Published
For Erik Karlsson, it’s a waiting game.
The San Jose Sharks defenceman will spend Monday night at the 2023 NHL Awards in Nashville waiting to see if he’s picked up another Norris Trophy after a blistering 101-point campaign on an otherwise non-competitive Sharks team.
A third Norris would put Karlsson in rarified air – only Bobby Orr, Nicklas Lidstrom, Doug Harvey, and Ray Bourque have more than three in their trophy case, putting him level with the likes of Chris Chelios, Paul Coffey, and Denis Potvin. For all intents and purposes, the Hockey Hall of Fame can start finding space for Karlsson’s future entry.
But after tonight, another wait as the Sharks search for a trade that will allow Karlsson to chase the Stanley Cup he so desperately wants.
The Sharks have not been shy about their interest in rebuilding, and a 33-year-old Karlsson making $11.5-million per year is a luxury they aren’t interested in right now. But that same contract makes moving Karlsson a challenge on multiple fronts.
There are the obvious issues navigating the salary cap – teams squeezing in that type of salary have trouble making hay in a healthy revenue growth environment, let alone one that’s seen a sharp slowdown in recent years. With most contenders tight against the cap, salary retention becomes the name of the game. And that’s just one complicating factor. We haven’t even addressed Karlsson’s no-movement clause, which may preclude San Jose from sending him to certain markets.
Again, that’s just the financial component of it. That said, we have seen enough cap ingenuity from teams over the years – this year’s Stanley Cup winner could write a book on it – that no contract seems too onerous to move.
What might give teams more pause isn’t the contract itself, but the inherent risk of Karlsson on the ice. Prior to this year’s renaissance season, Karlsson struggled with health, and at the age of 33, there are genuine questions about what the road ahead looks like.
That’s a question worth exploring, and for my money, I think Karlsson – assuming a team can make the financials work, which would certainly include salary retention and very likely a third team as a trade partner – is a sound bet, at least for the next few seasons.
Consider the below table, which shows similarly aged defencemen (2007-23) with 95th percentile performance seasons, the type of year where a defender has materially improved a team’s position in the standings. They are rare, but notably they are from some of the most reliable names on the blueline over the past two decades.
Now consider how they trended:
Most of these names were entrenched top-four defenders throughout their career, and there are a number of Hall of Famers – they either have their rings, or are getting fitted shortly – you can use for direct comparables. The general takeaway is these defenders are such notable outliers, such top-end performers, that our expectations for how future performance may wane or degrade must be atypical.
Even three years out from monstrous seasons in their early 30s, these defenders were still worth nearly 10 goals above expected based on their performance, good enough for about the 85th percentile of league-wide performance. And in the case of true superstars, the types you might use as more direct comps, that production can sustain at even higher levels – players like Zdeno Chara, Dan Boyle, Mark Giordano, and so on, seem like unicorns.
Karlsson has been a unicorn his entire career. To that end, if a team can make the financials of this deal work, I think there’s reason to be bullish about how much he can still bring to a team.
We have seen this story before, and from guys with less inherent skill to boot.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference