Criticism has been great against Erik Karlsson.
But last night the superstar gave an answer to the speech.
The Swede scored his first goal for the Pittsburgh Penguins – and was hugely praised afterwards.
Erik Karlsson was perhaps the NHL’s biggest exclamation point last year. It hadn’t been straight up since the move to the San Jose Sharks, but rather the opposite. Karlsson became one of the league’s highest-paid players when he left Ottawa for the club, but fairly immediately the Sharks began shipping players away, and the team was never really close to a playoff threat.
Has been criticized
And for Erik Karlsson, injuries often took over, which made it difficult for him to get up to par. But last year, his first injury free in a long time, everything clicked. Karlsson became the first defenseman in 30 years to reach 100 NHL points in a single season, and his success earned him the Norris Trophy, the award for the league’s best defenseman. And this summer, the transfer load went to a team that should seriously threaten to win the Stanley Cup.
The choice fell on the Pittsburgh Penguins, where Erik Karlsson has now become teammates with superstars such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. But the start of his new adventure has not been very good. Before tonight’s game against Detroit, Karlsson had played three games, and was only recorded for one point. He has also had poor underlying numbers – which is usually a good measure of how one performs in the game – which has led to criticism. Already last year, Karlsson was criticized a lot for his defensive play, and that criticism has only gotten worse during the start of this year’s season.
“His best match”
Karlsson is primarily an offensive back, but he still hadn’t scored a goal before last night. But against Detroit, the Swede showed why Pittsburgh invested so much in him. Karlsson was one of the great heroes of the match, and he also got to score his first goal, played by none other than Sidney Crosby. Karlsson was not finished there, however. He was also responsible for two assists in the match, and was thus in all three of Pittsburgh’s goals, in the match that Detroit won 6-3.
Erik Karlsson was hugely praised by experts and supporters for the dominant effort tonight. In addition to the three points, Karlsson also had almost 28(!) minutes of ice time, and he shot a total of eleven shots. When Karlsson was on the ice, Pittsburgh shot a total of 36 shots, and conceded zero(!).
“By far his best game in a Pittsburgh jersey,” writes Penguins expert Danny Shirey.
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