Erik Karlsson Named Top Defenseman & All Star At Olympics

Ottawa Senators and Team Sweden defenseman Erik Karlsson will take little solace, but he was named the top defenseman of the Olympic Hockey tournament.  Karlsson tied for the tournament scoring lead with 8 points, 4 goals and 4 assists.

A happy Erik Karlsson earlier in the tournament. PHOTO CREDIT: USA Today Sports

He was also named to the tournament All-Star team by the media, along with Henrik Lundqvist (Sweden), Drew Doughty (Canada), Teemu Selanne (Finland), Phil Kessel (USA) and Mikael Granlund (Finland).

Selanne was named the tournament MVP, which was as much a career achievement award as anything else, but was well deserved and couldn’t have been a better choice. It was also selected by the media. Selanne had 4 goals and 2 assists in the tournament and finished as the career leader in points in Olympic hockey history.

Joining Karlsson as a positional honoree as selected by the tournament directorate were top forward Kessel and top goalie Carey Price from Canada.  Kessel tied for 1st in tournament scoring with 5 goals and 3 assists for 8 points, while Price had 3 goals against in 5 games, recording 2 shutouts and allowing 1 goal total (all wins) in games against the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place teams in the tournament.