I'm a fan of a divisional rival who would like to see the Sharks struggle.$12 million if you want to round to the closet million. Sharks overpaid has been my view. I don't think the Sharks could get a 1st round pick in a trade today. Partly due to his $11.5m long term contract, and the other is he's not proved to be back at 100% from his injury previously as a Sens.
My fellow Sharks fans in our home forum likes to point out his play last season. Yes, he did have a good few weeks before he was injured.
They also like to point out his skating and passing. Yes, he's good at it, but in comparison, the other teal defensemen are mediocre at it. Sharks have not had a good skater/passer since Dan Boyle left the Sharks.
I'm still waiting to see this "ice tilting" capability of Karlsson that some had talked about. So far, he's overpaid just like Doughty.
Every defenseman makes multiple mistakes every single game. The good ones mostly avoid making those critical errors both with and away from the puck that immediately create high quality chances for the other team. Erik Karlsson has always made significant mental mistakes in his own zone.Karlsson is a good example of how people generally judge defense too much on mistakes. His defensive play is about killing space, not allowing room to carry the puck over blue line, standing up at the right moments, covering passing lanes, making reads to stop rushes in the neutral zone. If I recall correctly, he has significantly more pass blocks into the slot than any other d-men in the league. All of this is generally based on playing the odds in terms of risk vs reward, and it can come back to bite you. There's also, as @Caesar Rex pointed out above, some pretty deep valleys in his defensive play.
I find it interesting that it's become part of the consensus that d-men who don't make a lot of mistakes aren't necessarily great defensively because of it. Everybody knows that d-men who surrenders the blue line like it's contagious will likely not be beat wide, but they'll contribute to bad defensive results in the process. Somehow that doesn't apply to the other side of the spectrum.
In his own end he is not elite but seems like a great guy.
I got the non elite in his end thing right, man minus 4 tonight, he is an extra forward.I dont think you were even joking here, but it was pretty funny putting these two things in a sentance together.
And unfortunately I've heard that while hes well liked by his teammates, hes not the nicest guy to the general public in some stories from Ottawa.
Which is a shame for the money he makes, and the amount of fans that he has.