Karlsson doesn’t want to be there, and the team doesn’t want him there. He likely misses Ottawa, and the Eastern conference. In short, he’s not a good fit. He’s probably regretting not accepting Ottawa’s offer of 11x8M. He’ll never be the same outside of Ottawa, the team catered to him and built their system around him. He traded his comfort which was Ottawa for his Ego, and now the effects are being felt. The smart thing would’ve been to accept the shortcomings of Ottawa and just stay put, and reap the benefits of the team nurturing your skill, rather than moving and learning an entirew new team and system and essentially way of life. SJ belongs to Burns, Vlasic, Pavelski, and Thornton.
I never understood the trade to begin with, from SJ perspective, you have two number one right handed defenseman in Burns and Karlsson. If one of the two was left handed, then it would make sense.
Ottawa is better without him though, you can’t revolve your entire team around one player in today’s NHL. Edmonton might have the best player in the world (McDavid), but they don’t have enough of a good supporting cast of equal elites. Trading Hall is going to forever haunt them. In Hall and McDavid, you have the best duo in the NHL today. Pittsburgh, Chicago, LA, Boston, Washington, and now Toronto, all have more than one superstar on their team and don’t cater to any individual specifically.