Tim Benz: If you didn't like Erik Karlsson's performance in Carolina, you're going to hate his own alaysis of it
The only thing worse than the performance of Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson on Thursday night was his own assessment of it.
The Penguins lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1. He was held without a point, was a minus-3, and was the only defenseman on the team who failed to register a hit.
Most alarming was how Karlsson was at the center of both goals allowed in the first period. Less than a minute into the game, Jordan Martinook got behind Karlsson and scored on a pass from former Penguin Jordan Staal to make the game 1-0.
This is how Penguins coach Mike Sullivan characterized that goal without directly mentioning Karlsson by name — although he should have.
"We talk about playing behind them, making hard plays. We make a soft play," Sullivan said via video posted by the team . "We don't play him. It ends up in the back of our net."
Karlsson also got stuck in between on the second goal allowed when he gave up the wall so that Jack Roslovic could make a pretty bank pass to Sebastian Aho. Then Karlsson compounded that by failing to stay with Roslovic, who got a return pass from Aho for the second score of the game.
On the third goal, Karlsson was one of five Penguins looking confused about where to go on defense as the Hurricanes worked the puck around Pittsburgh's defensive zone before Roslovic scored again.
After the game, Karlsson was asked how he thought he played.
"Not bad," he said on SportsNet Pittsburgh after the game. "Unfortunate sometimes. It's tough sometimes when your first shift, they score on the first play, and it starts snowballing the other way. It's just one of those days where you've got to keep your head down and try (to) be in the right position at all times. Even if you're just a little off, sometimes it doesn't go your way. That's just one of those nights. I've had many of them, and I'm sure I've had some more. I just have got to figure out a way to control them."
Well, Karlsson got one thing right. He has had "many" of those nights, particularly as a Penguin. It's been a career spent chasing points as a defenseman at the expense of defense. For much of that career, the cost-benefit analysis has been worth it, to the tune of three Norris Trophies.
Over his 97 games as a Penguin, though, that hasn't been the case, seeing as how he hemorrhages scoring chances when he is on the ice and has put up just 64 points in Black and Gold. Meanwhile, the last three times Karlsson played at least 60 games in a season before arriving in Pittsburgh, he averaged 84.6 points.
For him to assess his own play as "not bad" and "unfortunate" is comical. To a degree, I guess he is right in the sense that his outing in Raleigh wasn't "bad." It was hideous.
And "unfortunate" is an accurate word — if he was attempting to describe the Penguins' decision to trade for him in the first place last summer.
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Karlsson didn't limit his laissez-faire critique to his own play either.
"We played a pretty solid game up until maybe toward the end when it was out of reach. But we did a lot of good things too," Karlsson said.
Yeah. OK, Erik. I got it. You dominated the shot total, and Hurricanes goalie Pyotr Kochetkov made 35 saves.
Sure. But, c'mon. You gave up five goals on 18 shots. You lost 5-1. You've lost eight of 10 games. You have five wins in 15 games, the second-lowest amount in the Eastern Conference. Spare us the " ac-cen-tu-ate the positives " routine. Own it like goalie Alex Nedeljkovic did.
"It (stinks)," Nedeljkovic said. "It's a crappy feeling. That was the difference in the game. Their guy was that much better than I was."
Sullivan had a similarly blunt assessment.
"I thought we had a lot of guys who played really hard and didn't get rewarded for their efforts," Sullivan said. "I think there were a few guys that didn't live up to the expectations. It's hard. We need everybody to bring it every night to have a chance to win."
Gee, I wonder who he was talking about?
Seeing as how Karlsson wound up with about three minutes less ice time than he normally gets (much of it on the power play after the first period), take a guess about who Sullivan is referencing.
Frankly, I'd like to see Karlsson get about 60 minutes less ice time in Washington on Friday night against the Capitals. As in, I hope Sullivan makes him a scratch after that display Thursday in Raleigh.
A lot of people in D.C. have lost their jobs this week. Maybe Karlsson should be added to that mix.
At least for one night.
