At 32 years old and several years removed from his dominant prime, Erik Karlsson surprised the league with a forceful resurgence this year. With a ridiculous 19 goals and 77 points in 60 games this season on the rebuilding San Jose Sharks, rumours of a trade involving Karlsson were reported. Now that these rumours seem to have died, Karlsson spoke honestly about his feelings on staying in San Jose.
The challenge, of course, would be moving Karlsson's massive contract - which is particularly worrisome with his age and play prior to this season. Karlsson still has 4 years left at $11.5M after this season, an impossible contract to fit on a contending team, which interests Karlsson.
Now remaining on the team after the Meier trade, foreseeably for the rest of his career, Karlsson was blunt about ending his career on a rebuilding team.
"You trade a guy like Timo, I don't think that shows that this is going to be a quick turnaround. It's unfortunate...understand what needs to be done from an organizational perspective, and it just sucks that it happened to be where I'm at in this stage of my career."
The only team that truly seemed interested in potentially making Karlsson fit was the Edmonton Oilers, but even with maximum salary retention, the Oilers felt it wasn't feasible. It's unfortunate for hockey, but even having a resurgence in his later years, Karlsson will play out his career on an irrelevant and rebuilding Sharks team.
