Yeah So I'm Going To Need Ottawa To Trade Erik Karlsson Already
Typically the NBA offseason kicks the shit out of the NHL offseason in terms of drama and entertainment. But somehow the NHL has managed to keep pace this summer. And for a brief moment yesterday, I’d say the NHL may have even passed the NBA offseason as far as intrigue goes with John Tavares skipping town and heading up north to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. But like 7 hours later, the biggest news of the day dropped and LeBron James announced he was joining the Los Angeles Lakers. Even the New York papers couldn’t give less of a shit about Tavares after the LeBron news.
The only chance the NHL has now of even coming remotely close to keeping up with the NBA would be for the Senators to trade Erik Karlsson. Even that wouldn’t necessarily move the needle a ton unless he ends up in a major market. But still. I’m getting real sick and tired of Greenie and Reags getting to have all the fun here. Almost every NHL trade deadline and free agency period comes with a ton of expectation for pure chaos, but the reality is barely anything interesting ever happens. Somehow we’ve been gifted a decent amount of chaos so far this summer by the Hockey Gods, and I’m saying we get greedy and just keep the damn thing going.
Now the Senators reportedly made an extension offer to Karlsson yesterday…
…but I’m assuming that phone call to Karlsson was met with about 5 full minutes of uninterrupted laughter until Karlsson realized that Pierre Dorion was serious. After which he just hung up the phone. So if Karlsson doesn’t end up signing a contract extension with Ottawa, you have to move the guy this summer especially after seeing the Islanders lose their superstar talent for absolutely nothing.
As of right now, it sounds like the Vegas Golden Knights are going to be the team that most likely come away with Karlsson. And with James Neal signing in Calgary late last night/early this morning, it’s almost a guarantee. Because not re-signing the Real Deal, that gives Vegas enough cap space to sign Erik Karlsson, ink him up to an extension, and take on Bobby Ryan’s contract as well. San Jose also has that cap space as well. Or the Senators could always send Karlsson and Bobby Ryan to the New York Rangers who could then decide to flip Karlsson somewhere else to speed up their rebuild. The point I’m making here is that there are plenty of options for the Ottawa Senators to go with here and almost all of them make more sense than finding themselves in the same position the Islanders were in yesterday. Replacing John Tavares with Leo Komarov and Val Filppula would be like the Ottawa Senators trying to replace Braydon Coburn and Roman Polak.