Kurtenbach: 3 thoughts on the Sharks’ massive trade for Erik Karlsson

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Last year, the Sharks wasted a — pardon the pun — golden opportunity to win their first Stanley Cup title.

I thought they were the best team in the Western Conference last year. They had the three key features you look for in the playoffs: strong goaltending, a stout penalty kill, and excellent five-on-five scoring.

Ultimately, the Sharks fell to the opportunistic and at times downright magical Vegas Golden Knights in the second round.

Still, with the return of Joe Thornton to the lineup and the further development of the Sharks’ young and exciting core, there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic that the Sharks could seriously contend for the Cup again in 2019.

But after Thursday, optimism simply won’t cut it.

The Sharks acquisition of defenseman Erik Karlsson from the Ottawa Senators was a blockbuster.

It’s a move that’s exciting but confusing, bold but straightforward.

It’s a trade that should reverberate around the league for years to come.

And I have some thoughts on it:

1. The Sharks just entered the NHL’s elite — which means it’s Stanley Cup or bust

Make no mistake about it, Erik Karlsson is an elite player. Last year, he was named the third best player in the league — behind only Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid — by NHL Network.

And the Sharks just landed him for next-to-nothing.

Acquiring Karlsson doesn’t just improve the Sharks, it makes them significantly better than they were last year — and remember, they were already really good.

In a wide-open league where eight teams have better than 20-to-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup; in a Western Conference that features ten teams with better than 20-to-1 odds to represent it in the Cup Final — the Sharks just separated themselves from the fray.

These Sharks are now one of the NHL’s elite teams and it doesn’t take much of an argument to back up that claim.

The Sharks now boast arguably the best triumvirate of defensemen in the NHL — Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc Edouard Vlasic — to play alongside one of the best top-six forward groups in the league and one of the more underrated goalies in the game.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a team with better depth or top-end talent than the Sharks right now. Seriously.

Vegas, Anaheim, Los Angeles? The Sharks jumped them with this Karlsson trade. San Jose is the new Pacific Division favorite.

As for Winnipeg and Nashville — the perceived favorites in the Western Conference — where is the gap between them and the Sharks? I don’t see one.

The Sharks have never won the Stanley Cup, despite missing the playoffs only twice in the last 20 years. That’s the organization’s burden and it weighs on them.

Of course, every team is disappointed if they don’t win the Cup, but for most of the 30 teams that don’t lift the trophy, there are moral victories to be found at the end of the season.

Last year, for instance, the Sharks found value in the development of their young players — their new core — even though they disappointedly failed to advance out of the second round.

That same kind of rationalization simply won’t play in 2019. With a roster this loaded, getting close simply won’t cut it.

Not with this team’s history. Not after Thursday’s trade.

These Sharks — with Karlsson in tow — can beat any team in the league in a seven-game series in 2019. I firmly believe that.

It’s truly Stanley Cup or bust for the Sharks this year.

2. Doug Wilson is a swindle god — give the man the credit he deserves

Over the last year, Sharks general manager Doug Wilson has traded for two top-flight players, Evander Kane and Karlsson, and only sent away:

• Two first-round picks

• A second-round pick

• A few other spins of the prospect roulette wheel in later rounds

• Daniel O’Regan

• Chris Tierney

• Dylan DeMelo

• Josh Norris

• Rudolfs Balcers

That. Is. It.

It’s baffling. It’s almost unconscionable.

And while we figure out how the hell this happened, let’s give Wilson some damn credit — this is exceptional roster building.

Yes, both Kane and Karlsson were acquired as “rentals” but given the Sharks’ salary cap situation, there’s every indication that both will be with this team long term — Kane’s already locked in, having signed a seven-year deal with the Sharks this summer.

It’ll be interesting to see the Sharks sign Karlsson — who is a free agent at the end of the season — post haste or if they wait until he’s closer to free agency (if at all) to engage on a new deal. Sometimes a contract extension is built-in to a trade like this.

But even if Karlsson only plays one year with the Sharks, this trade is worth it. Seriously. The Senators’ return is downright laughable.

Is Chris Tierney a good player? Yes. I can’t think of a team in the NHL that wouldn’t want him. He’s a solid two-way center.

But Tierney is not the centerpiece player of a trade for a player like Karlsson.

Apparently, we inhabit the only universe or dimension where such a trade is feasible, much less possible.

Wilson has picked up heat this offseason for “not doing enough” and while that sentiment, I’d argue, wasn’t completely misguided, I never subscribed to it.

This summer, Wilson went for, and missed, on John Tavares. The call of playing at home in Toronto was too much for the now-Leafs center. You can’t hold that against the Sharks’ GM.

But instead of being impulsive and overreacting by overpaying for another free agent, Wilson waited.

In a league where star players are traded frequently like the NHL, there’s always value in keeping salary cap space. Wilson stayed primed and waited for the right opportunity.

That patience paid off in a big way Thursday.

Karlsson is a better player than Tavares, in my estimation. (I think Tavares is good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t understand the perception that he’s even close to the class of Karlsson and the league’s other superstars. There are levels to this.)

“It’s extremely rare that players of this caliber become available,” Wilson said in a press release. “The word ‘elite’ is often thrown around casually but Erik’s skillset and abilities fit that description like few other players in today’s game. With Erik, Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, we feel we have three of the NHL’s top defensemen and stand as a better team today than we were yesterday.”

And while yes, Wilson had to give something up to land the two-time Norris Trophy winner, what did he really give up?

Some might be concerned about the first-round picks Wilson sent to Buffalo and Ottawa with the Kane and Karlsson trades — they could argue that he’s jeopardizing the future of the franchise in the name of short-term gains. But that’s a ridiculous, uneducated notion.

The NHL Draft is as top-heavy as any draft in North American professional sports — even more so than the NBA Draft, I’d argue. Some NHL people think that any pick outside of the top five is a crapshoot, while others draw the line at the top 10. Regardless, the Sharks will not have a pick in the top 10, top half, or probably top third of the draft for a long while.

And picks made in that 20-plus range don’t even turn out, on average, to be regular NHL players. In other words, if you’re picking late in the first, you’re lucky if you get a Chris Tierney, but you’re more likely to land a Dylan DeMelo.

Add in the fact that the Sharks have a tried and true scouting department that has a tremendous reputation of finding middle and late-round talent and developing them into NHL players, and there’s no reason to fret over those first-round draft picks — just as there’s no reason to fret over the players the Sharks are sending to Ottawa.

This trade was a downright fleecing. I thought the Kane deal was lopsided, but Wilson outdid himself on Thursday.

In fact, this deal is so unbalanced that it speaks to a larger issue:

3. The NHL needs to do something about the Senators

The Senators brass says that they’re rebuilding.

I’m starting to think that the NHL should step in and do the building for them.

The Senators organization has been in a state of crisis for more than a year. There was the Karlsson-Hoffman cyberbullying scandal, an assistant general manager’s suspension and then firing after he was arrested on a harassment charge, a massive refinancing because of team debt, terrible attendance at their stadium half an hour outside of the city (which, in Canada, isn’t the suburbs), and a terrible record.

This team reportedly has 4,000 season ticket holders. That’d be laughable if it wasn’t so damn sad.

And when the Sens reportedly — allegedly — offered Karlsson a long-term contract extension this summer, he unsurprisingly turned it down.

Then, the team then tried to pass of Thursday’s trade as “the most important trade in a rebuild”.

Outside of landing another generational talent like Karlsson (or two) via the draft — and perhaps even then — I don’t see how the Sens will be anything but dreadful for the next half-decade.

The experiment is failing — in real time. We don’t need to play it all the way out.

The NHL needs to step in and either force a change in ownership or take control and move the team to Mississauga or Quebec City — places that will actually support the team.

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