When the Pittsburgh Penguins traded for defenseman Erik Karlsson prior to the start of the 2023-24 season, it seemed like a slam-dunk move. They were getting a Hall of Fame defenseman and three-time Norris Trophy winner for a first-round pick and a bunch of bad contracts they did not want. It was also an attempt to make another run at a potential Stanley Cup with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and it gave them another big-time talent to help get them there.
Over Karlsson’s first two seasons with
the Penguins, things did not exactly go as planned. Karlsson was mostly fine, but not quite the impact player they were hoping for him to be. The team as a whole slumped and missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons, with something of a rebuild or re-tool starting to happen at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Coming into the 2025-26 season expectations were pretty low for everybody on the team, including Karlsson. He seemed to be one of the veteran players on the trade block, most people had given up on him still being an elite player, and nobody had any expectations for the Penguins to be even remotely competitive this season.
Here we are halfway through the month of March, with just 16 games remaining on the regular season schedule, and the Penguins are in second-place in the Metropolitan Division, still maintaining a nice cushion for a playoff spot and in a really good spot overall. They are still winning games and collecting points despite Crosby having missed the past month.
There are a lot of reasons for that success, and the play of Karlsson has to be near the top of the list. Not only for the season as a whole, but also during this recent stretch of games without Crosby and while Malkin was suspended.
The Karlsson trade is again looking like an easy slam-dunk win.
While he may not have the big-time offensive numbers he had at his peak, this might be some of the best all-around hockey Karlsson has played in years. Perhaps ever. He is not only looking like an impact player, he is playing like a true No. 1 defenseman and superstar again, and is one of the players that should give the Penguins hope that they can seriously contend this season. Having a No. 1 defenseman playing like this is one of the key ingredients a contending team needs. It is not hyperbole or an exaggeration to suggest that Karlsson is playing at that sort of level this season.
His performance on Monday in the Penguins 7-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche might have been his best masterpiece of the season so far. He has been playing fantastic hockey for a while now, but he seemed to reach an entirely different level against the Avalanche.
He not only recorded three more points, including his seventh goal of the season, he was simply in control of the entire game, while playing some of the toughest minutes against some of the best players in the league.
He spent more time going against Nathan MacKinnon than any other player on the Avalanche. The Penguins not only won those minutes by a 2-1 margin on the scoreboard, but Karlsson finished with a 51 percent expected goal share against MacKinnon in their head-to-head minutes. Not many people do that. Not many teams are able to limit him that much or do that well against him. That is the type of play that has been such a difference-maker for the Penguins this season.
You know Karlsson is going to produce offense. You know he is going to create offense. He still did that over the past two seasons. But the way he has played in-control, and smart, and just taken over games is what has been so important for this Penguins team.
There are a lot of variables that have gone into this.
Parker Wotherspoon has been a huge surprise this season and turned out to be a perfect complement and defense partner for him.
He also seems to be one of the players that has really welcomed the head-coaching change in going from Mike Sullivan to Dan Muse. It was easy to joke earlier in the season about how much Karlsson and Sullivan must not have liked each other given how much more confident and smooth Karlsson looked without him, but now that is really starting to look like the case. He is just simply a different player.
The overall numbers speak for themselves.
With seven goals and 43 total points in 62 games he is on a 65-point pace over 82 games.
When he is on the ice during 5-on-5 play the Penguins are outscoring teams by a 57-40 margin with a 52.2 percent expected goals share.
Since returning from the Olympic break the Penguins are outscoring teams 11-6 with Karlsson on the ice during 5-on-5 play, while he has 14 individual points in those 11 games across all situations.
Over the past six games, including the five games during the Malkin suspension, the Penguins are outscoring teams 7-4 with a 56.5 expected goals share during 5-on-5 play.
[All Data Via Natural Stat Trick]
There have been a lot of players that have stepped up recently. Karlsson is at the top of the list. He is playing exactly like the player the Penguins hoped they would be getting. It just took a couple of years and a new head coach to bring it all together for everybody.
