Zizing 'Em Up: Karlsson set for 1st trip back to San Jose with Penguins

NHL

30 October 2023

Zizing 'Em Up: Karlsson set for 1st trip back to San Jose with Penguins

Defenseman hopes for positive reaction in ‘special place’ from Sharks fans

NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger has been covering the NHL regularly since 1999. Each Sunday he will use his extensive networks of hockey contacts to write his weekly notes column, “Zizing ‘Em Up.”

TORONTO -- Earlier this month, Pierre-Luc Dubois went back to Winnipeg as a member of the Los Angeles Kings and was lustily booed every time he touched the puck.

On Saturday, Erik Karlsson will make his own return, this time to San Jose with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Will he get the Dubois treatment from the crowd at SAP Center, where he played for the San Jose Sharks for five seasons? Or will the veteran defenseman, who was traded to Pittsburgh over the summer, receive more cheers than jeers?

The 33-year-old would love the reaction to be a positive one.

“I hope so,” Karlsson told NHL.com in a phone interview. “I have a lot of memories there and will always cherish that, so hopefully they can take away the good times we had together. And, you know, other times, it’s just part of the business sometimes, unfortunately.

“It didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. I know they’re going through some tough times there right now, but I enjoyed my time there.”

In the case of Dubois, even though he claimed he never demanded a trade from the Winnipeg Jets, the passionate fan base in Manitoba’s capital had a sense he didn’t want to be in their market, whether to play or live, and felt betrayed. In what was an ugly divorce between player and city, the 25-year-old was dealt to the Kings for forwards Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, and a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.

Now it’s Karlsson’s turn. He’ll play an NHL game in San Jose for the first time since leaving the Bay Area when the Sharks host the Penguins on Nov. 4 (10 p.m. ET; SN-PIT, NBCSCA).

In Karlsson’s case, he wants it understood that his issue had nothing to do with calling San Jose his home. He loved it there. His children -- 4-year-old daughter, Harlow, and 1-year-old son, Stellan, were born there. His young family embraced being there.

At the same time, the Sharks’ narrative changed.

Having arrived in a trade from the Ottawa Senators in 2018, Karlsson reached the Western Conference Final with San Jose in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs before being eliminated by the eventual champion St. Louis Blues. What followed were four consecutive playoff misses, leading to the hiring of Mike Grier as general manager to oversee the rebuild July 5, 2022.

Eight days after Grier took over the position, All-Star defenseman Brent Burns was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. Karlsson understood why. The Sharks were looking toward the future. Trouble was, as a 30-something player, he didn’t know if he’d still be in his prime to see it.

According to Karlsson, Grier was open to his desire to be dealt to a more competitive situation, one where he was closer to his dream of winning the Stanley Cup. The roadblock to that plan, he admits, was that he has four seasons remaining on an eight-year, $92 million contract ($11.5 million average annual value) he signed with San Jose on June 17, 2019.

Grier was clear there was only a certain amount of money in Karlsson’s contract the Sharks were willing to gobble up in any kind of trade, which made it difficult to pull off a deal. But pull it off they did, sending Karlsson to the Penguins in a three-team trade Aug. 6 that also involved the Montreal Canadiens, when San Jose would retain a digestible $1.5 million of his salary annually.

Karlsson said he is grateful for Grier’s efforts during the process.

“I think ever since he came in and took over his role there, it’s been a really mutually open relationship,” he said. “I think he knew the situation he was coming into and the things he wanted to do, and he was very transparent with all of that. In return, I was very open with him about what I wanted to achieve in my life and my career.

“I think we started our relationship on the right foot right from the beginning. He’s a very good man, personally and professionally. I can see that. He has a very clear vision of how he wants to do things, and he was very clear on how long he thinks that was going to take.”

Through it all, as Karlsson waited to see if he’d be moved last season, he took the high road, on and off the ice.

In the end, he became the sixth defenseman in NHL history to have 100 points, finishing with 101 (25 goals, 76 assists), and was voted the Norris Trophy winner as the League’s best defenseman. But the Cup is the prize he really covets, and San Jose (22-44-16) was nowhere close to reaching those heights, finishing 29th in the NHL standings.

Karlsson wants Sharks fans to know he gave his all, even when it was clear a playoff berth was not in the cards.

“I think I showed that with the season I had there,” said Karlsson, who has four points (one goal, three assists) in his first eight games with the Penguins. “People there were very good to me and my family, and we haven’t forgotten.”

Case in point: Harlow loves team mascots and received a visit from San Jose’s S.J. Sharkie at the Karlssons’ California home before they packed up and moved east. He brought a rose for the excited little girl, and the two played with toys together as part of the farewell.

“It will always be a special place for us,” he said. “For all of us.”

He’d like to think the fans at the “Shark Tank” know that. In the end, the real litmus test if they did and do, will come in the form of their reaction Saturday.

PIT@DET: Karlsson snaps home a shot from the circle in the 3rd

TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY

Sometime this week, many teams will be facing a decision on what to do with their young rookies.

A player on an entry-level contract with Canadian Hockey League eligibility can play nine NHL games before teams must choose whether to keep him or return him to the junior level and delay the start of their contract to the following season. Teams still can send a player down after his 10th game, but it would use up the first season of his contract regardless of how many more NHL games he played.

In the case of 19-year-old forward Matthew Poitras, the path he’ll be taking with the Boston Bruins seems to be evident.

Through his first eight NHL games, the Whitby, Ontario, native has five points (three goals, two assists), is averaging 14:46 of ice time per game and showing the savvy of grizzled veterans almost twice his age. Should he continue to be in the Bruins lineup on a nightly basis, his 10th game would be against the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden in Boston on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+, SNO, TVAS).

“I can tell you this, we won’t be calling the Bruins pestering them to see if they are going to keep him or send him down,” said Scott Walker, the co-owner and team president of the Guelph Storm in the Ontario Hockey League. “I have no issues with other teams doing those things, but we just don’t want to do it. You don’t want the NHL team to think we don’t believe a player doesn’t belong up there, because we do.

“In junior hockey, that’s our job -- to produce and develop kids into NHL players. And he’s shown thus far he belongs there.”

BOS@CHI: Poitras doubles Bruins' lead in 3rd

Poitras was selected by Boston in the second round (No. 54) of the 2022 NHL Draft. He responded by elevating his game with a 95-point season (16 goals, 79 assists) in 63 games with Guelph.

He was one of the biggest, if not the biggest surprise at Bruins training camp, although Walker was quick to point out some of the traits that have allowed him to adapt to professional hockey while still a teenager.

“Look, he’s not skating like Connor McDavid, he’s not ripping it like Auston Matthews. What he is, is super smart and hard on the puck,” Walker said. “He’s got super vision, which you see in his playmaking. And he’s scoring goals, which tells you he’s smart enough to put himself into position to score those goals.”

Walker would know what it takes to make it in the NHL. He had 397 points (151 goals, 246 assists) in 829 games with the Vancouver Canucks, Carolina Hurricanes, Nashville Predators and Washington Capitals from 1995-2010.

“What I told him when he went to camp was to just do what they told him and don’t ask questions,” Walker recalled. “Don’t ask them how you’re doing, don’t ask if they’re going to send you down. Just do what they tell you to do and do your best in that regard.”

So far, Poitras has done exactly that. And, come this week, odds are he’ll find out that it’s paid off with a permanent spot on the Bruins roster.

WINGING IT

At one point last week, Dave Brown and other members of the staff in Erie of the OHL were having a discussion when the topic became Alex DeBrincat.

Their conclusion: They aren’t surprised by the 25-year-old’s sizzling start with the Detroit Red Wings, one that featured 13 points (nine goals, four assists) in his first nine games with his new team.

“I think he’s a creature of comfort,” said Brown, the Erie GM. “He’s playing at home. If he’s comfortable with the situation, if he’s comfortable with his surroundings, if he’s comfortable with the people he’s around, he thrives. But if he’s caught off-guard, that’s a different story.”

Such was the case when the speedy forward was traded to the Ottawa Senators on July 7, 2022.

Selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round (No. 39) of the 2016 NHL Draft, DeBrincat started the 2017-18 season in the NHL after three productive seasons with Erie, where he had 332 points (167 goals, 165 assists) in 191 games. Brown said the 5-foot-8, 180-pound wing was happy in Chicago, where he had 307 points (160 goals, 147 assists) in 368 games.

When the Blackhawks decided to trade him as part of their rebuild, Brown said DeBrincat was caught off-guard. He finished fourth on the Senators in scoring last season with 66 points (27 goals, 39 assists), all the while being a bit outside his comfort zone, according to Brown.

On July 9, the Senators traded DeBrincat to the Red Wings, the team he’d grown up rooting for, for forward Dominik Kubalik, defenseman Donovan Sebrango, and a conditional first- and fourth-round pick in 2024. DeBrincat, who was a restricted free agent, signed a four-year, $31.5 million contract ($7.875 million AAV) with Detroit.

He’s thrived early on for the Red Wings, whose home rink, Little Caesars Arena, is just 21 miles from his hometown of Farmington Hills, Michigan.

“The trade to Ottawa took him by surprise,” Brown said. “That’s not a slag on Ottawa; he enjoyed it there. But like I said, he’s a creature of comfort. He didn’t know anyone there. It was all new to him. He’s much more comfortable playing at home, and it’s showing.

“Look, this kid has always been told what he can’t do. When he was Connor McDavid’s linemate here (in Erie), he was told his play would fade when Connor went to the NHL. He was constantly told he was too small. But when he’s around people he knows and he feels comfortable, he has the type of drive that ends up proving a lot of people wrong.”

You don’t have to convince the Red Wings of that.

SEA@DET: DeBrincat puts Red Wings ahead 4-3 in 3rd

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

“Maybe he’s waiting for that, yeah (laughing). But in all seriousness, he’s like me. It was hard for me to say it’s over, which I did. It’s hard to walk away. It's just hard to admit all of those things, which is what you have to do when you officially retire.”

-- Former NHL forward Patrick Marleau, when asked Friday if his good friend and longtime Sharks teammate Joe Thornton was waiting for his trademark beard to grow down to his feet before announcing he’s hanging up the blades for good. One day later, “Jumbo Joe,” who had not played an NHL game since the 2021-22 season, did announce he had hung up the blades for good. Maybe he’d been talking to his buddy Patty about it?

THE SUNDAY LIST

The Heritage Classic between the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers at Commonwealth Stadium (capacity 60,000) on Sunday is a reminder of memorable past outdoor games that have drawn huge crowds. Here is a list of the largest crowds to watch a game in NHL history.

1. 104,173

2014 Winter Classic, Jan. 1, 2014

Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Toronto Maple Leafs 3, Detroit Red Wings 2 (SO).

2. 85,630

2020 Winter Classic, Jan. 1, 2020

Cotton Bowl, Dallas

Dallas Stars 4, Nashville Predators 2

3. 71,217

2008 Winter Classic, Jan. 1, 2008

Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo

Pittsburgh Penguins 2, Buffalo Sabres 1 (SO)