CRANBERRY TWP., PA (93.7 The Fan) – In one sentence admitting the Erik Karlsson trade hasn’t worked, Pens general manager Kyle Dubas also said Friday he can be part of their solution going forward.
It’s worth mentioning here that general manager’s statements always have to be taken with a bit of scrutiny. If he ever wants to trade Karlsson in the future, you aren’t going to say here you are looking to trade him. As for trade deadline, Dubas said no teams asked him about Karlsson. Nor were they proactive in finding out which players might wave a no-trade clause and to which teams.
“If it was in the best interest of the team and the Penguins moving ahead, we would have,” Dubas said. “But there just weren’t any circumstances that were there.”
Dubas thought it was in the best interest of the team to add Karlsson when he first became the Pens new GM. Understandably, Karlsson won the Norris Trophy with San Jose. In 82 games in 2022-23 he had 25 goals and 76 assists and one of only six defensemen in NHL history with 100 points. A quarter of those points on the power play where the Pens were struggling.
“The team is coming out of missing the playoffs,” Dubas said. “The attempt was to bring him in and the things we did in the summer of '23 to try to get a run, that was the strategy. Try to give it one jolt to try to propel it back in.”
“It didn't work.”
Since coming to Pittsburgh Karlsson has played in 146 games before Friday night, it took him that many games to get to the same 101 points he had in one season with the Sharks and he is still six goals shy of that record year. There is one area where he surpassed his last year in San Jose, giveaways. Karlsson had 101 that season and with the Pens he now has 185, the 114 and counting this year leads the NHL.
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Dubas said that’s as much on the team as it is on Karlsson. He said the 34-year-old defenseman has had his ups-and-downs, but the skating is still some of the best in the league. Dubas believes his offense and puck movement continue to be at an elite level.
“We have to keep pushing him,” Dubas said. “I think he can be a part of helping our team continue to move along. So, I don't sense with his skating or his talent and ability that there's going to be any real drop off.”
The way Karlsson was described by Dubas was a ‘hugely valuable player in the league’. Because of that, he said there was ‘no discussion, nothing taken to him about waiving his no-move’.
“He's not a player that we would look to just move along,” Dubas said.