Karlson to me never really came back from that nasty injury he had. I’ve heard him make jokes a couple of times about not doing “all that crazy stuff I used to do”. To me he clearly is on the back 9, and while his 80% is still better than just about anyone I really don’t think a max contract is a good idea for anyone to sign him to.
I would’ve signed Doughty first but that guy has been in the grind since he was 18 and while he hasn’t slowed down much (or at all) I’d still be a little uneasy about signing him for 8 years too.
I’m all for 5 year max deals.
There were two terrible injuries he sustained, one was the Matt Cooke-induced Achilles in I want to say 2013? That one he fully recovered from. During the nice playoff run two years ago, there were a couple of injuries to the same foot. That entire year was the best all around I’ve ever seen him play. Offensively he was great, defensively you just never saw him lose a battle. He was unreal. And in the playoffs, his foot was so broken...really an amazing run of hockey for him.
According to him, he still skates differently and probably will never get back to the same type of stride.
He is one of my all time favorites, and yet if I was GM, I would have had massive reservations over an 8 year extension.
