Vitals
Player: Erik Karlsson
Born: May 31, 1990 (35 years old, with an upcoming birthday)
Height: 6-feet
Weight: 185 pounds
Hometown: Landsbro, Sweden
Shoots: Right
Draft: First round pick (15th overall) in 2008 by the Ottawa Senators
2024-25 Statistics: 75 games played; 15 goals; 51 assists; 66 points; one goal and two assists in six playoff games
Contract Status: Signed through 2026-27 ($10.0 million cap hit for Penguins, $1.5 million retained by San Jose)
Story of the Season
Like an artist on the ice, Erik Karlsson painted
a masterpiece in a style all his own in 2025-26. He ended up 10th among NHL defenders in goals (15) and eighth in points (66) in a season where he was often the best player on the ice he masterfully controlled. Karlsson produced more points than his first two seasons as a Penguin (56, then 53) and played a confident and forceful game under new coach Dan Muse and new partner Parker Wotherspoon.
It was a banner season, and one he needed to remind the world that he remains one of the top players in the sport. Karlsson wasn’t one of the first six players named to the Swedish Olympic team, as he was for the 4 Nations tournament a year before. That small slight gave him something to avenge. Karlsson was named to his country’s the Olympic team once the full roster was released and produced four assists in five games in Milan. He may not have entered the season as one of the top-five Swedish players in the world but he left the year with a good case for it.
Even when things were looking bad, they ended up working out well for Karlsson this year. On January 13th, he was placed on IR, makring the first time in 208 games as a Penguin that he wouldn’t be available to play. He was said to be re-evaluated in two weeks, only to take to the ice a few days later on his own and then return to the lineup on January 22nd because in his own words, “Obviously I’m on the road trip not to be a mascot”.
Karlsson certainly was anything but a mascot, he Penguins’ efforts for a playoff spot was generated by no small part by his heavy lifting. He led the team in total ice-time by over 150 minutes over the next highest teammate, playing a key role at even strength, power play, penalty kill, overtime. You name it, he did it and did it exceedingly well.
Monthly Splits
via Yahoo
There was a period of time between Feb 28 – Mar 28 where Karlsson scored 25 points over 16 games, only Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov (26) had more in the whole NHL during that period. That also held up for the entire month of March, Karlsson had 24 points and only Kucherov (26) produced more points in the entire league. That pretty much says it all right there considering that Evgeni Malkin played 8/16 games in that stretch and Sidney Crosby was out for 11/16 of the games. When the Pens needed Karlsson to make sure their good season was on track to become a playoff season, he was right there leading the way and was the focal point of pretty much the entire offensive operation.
Regular season 5v5 advanced stats
Data via Natural Stat Trick. Ranking is out of 11 defensemen on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.
Corsi For%: 53.9 (1st)
Goals For%: 57.9 (3rd)
xGF%: 52.0 (5th)
Scoring Chance%: 53.5 (2nd)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 53.5 (4th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 11.6 (4th)
On-ice save%: .900 (7th)
Goals/60: 0.47
Assists/60: 1.04
Points/60: 1.51 (3rd)
Some other players in smaller, protected roles could pop high numbers in some of those categories, Karlsson acquits himself well across the board in the advanced stats in a huge workload. He finished first in the team among defensemen in rate of offensive AND defensive zone starts per 60 minutes played. His shoulder got tapped to go out and take his turn all over the place.
Charts n’at
Via Advanced Hockey Stats and NHL Edge
It was a great season for Karlsson under Dan Muse. His defensive impact is never anything to write home about but bumped up significantly this year (the upgrade from playing with Matt Grzelcyk to Wotherspoon was real). The offense, as always, is there for Karlsson in spades. Karlsson was also counted on as a PKer and performed well, logging 140 total PK minutes this season. That time more than doubled up last year’s total of 64 PK minutes, which he pointed out to national media in his typically blunt, biting but truthful fashion that he was happy to spread his wings and finally be asked to be relied upon in that department.
The microstats show what makes Karlsson such a special player. Besides hitting opponents, he is capable of pretty much doing everything on the rink better than just about everyone else. Some players can excel at certain confined areas, Karlsson has abundant skills to be great at it all. His shooting and passing in the offensive zone is elite, his ability to exit and enter the zones is top notch. He retrieves pucks defensively like no one’s business. He can spring the rush, he can contribute to in-zone offense for slower developing plays. Fantastic stuff across the board on any area you pick.
The chart on the bottom left with shot locations shows how much Karlsson roves in the offensive zone. He’ll push and take whatever space he’s given or can create to sneak into better locations for shots.
Besides Egor Chinakhov and Karlsson, almost no one on the Pens regularly has a plus shot in terms of velocity. But boy oh boy does Karlsson help to make up for that. Considering that he had a total of 176 shots on the year that means almost 40% of them were 80+ mph. He doesn’t throw a changeup at net too often, he’s bringing the heat and is one of the few players in the league that is capable of reaching 90+ mph with regularity on his slap shot.
Excellent skating ability is the base of Karlsson’s game. Even at 35 years old he’s still among the elite pure skaters on the ice. Often times it doesn’t even look that way to the eye since his burst is so smooth and his skating style is so strong but the ol boy still has his wheels to fly all over the ice. It’s a shame this data didn’t exist in his athletic peak back in the 2010’s, it surely would have had yielded some frightening results.
Highlights
Questions to ponder
Karlsson turns 36 over the weekend and his contract is up following next season. While eligible to sign an extension on July 1, Kyle Dubas didn’t make it sound like it was a pressing priority for player or team to deal with in the near future. But the future is the big question, does Karlsson want to come back to the Penguins in 2027-28? The possibility of a trade anytime soon is almost laughable at this point but that could be revisited based on how the team does in the first 40-50 games next season. Will he remain a Penguin through 2026-27 and will there be a beyond? There might not be an answer to that for quite a while and the rare case where the answer is largely dependent more about how the team’s direction is looking more than how the individual performs.
Ideal 2026-27
You could pretty much copy and paste 2025-26 into next year and would have to be thrilled with a defenseman playing nearly 24 minutes per night in all situations, producing 15 goals and 66 points and tilting the ice in his team’s favor. In his mid-30s, no less. It took a while, but Karlsson finally unlocked everything in his game that the Pens were hoping to get in 2023 when they acquired him.
Bottom line
Karlsson is still that dude. He had a monster season and was a worthy choice for the Team MVP honors that he received.
Pensburgh Grade: A
