Con: Never rule out the San Jose Sharks’ blue-line pair, Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns.
With only 45 points this season and managing just 53 games in the regular season, it’s fair to say it was somewhat of a down year for Erik Karlsson, wearing teal for the first time. We’re talking a perennial sixty-plus points per season player.
Of course, some of this was down to recurrent injury issues and some of it was in part due to needing to adapt to playing for a new team. He didn’t find instant chemistry in the San Jose Sharks line-up when he first arrived, but eventually turned it around.
This was in part due to fellow blue-liner, Brent Burns. In Ottawa, Karlsson was never blessed with a teammate on defense that could offer up similarly strong production. You certainly saw this season that it seemed to ease the pressure for him.
Brent Burns was his usual monstrous self, netting 16 goals and 67 points on his way to a pretty much point-per-game season of 83 points across the 82 games he played. Between the pair of them, we’re talking 128 points that they contributed to their team.
They’ve both brought that level of form into the playoffs too with matching tallies of 16 points in 19 play-off games that sees them equal second on their team for playoff points behind only Logan Couture.
Both men have been all the way before, but never quite managed to get it done in the Stanley Cup Final. Karlsson is obviously up for a bumper payday this summer and that has to be playing on him that with the salary cap era; this could be the best constructed roster he’ll ever play on.
Burns, meanwhile isn’t getting any younger; the 34-year-old knows there’s a limit to the amount of years he can keep producing at such elite levels; there are going to be motivators for both defensemen so never write them off!