Erik Karlsson Trade
When a team is forced to trade away their franchise piece, and the second-greatest player to ever suit up for the team, it’s near impossible to win that trade. At first, when the Ottawa Senators were forced to move Erik Karlsson, it looked underwhelming. At the time, this was the trade:
I already broke down this trade on another piece, but I’ll talk about it a bit here. Dylan DeMelo turned out great with the Sens during his short time with the team, serving as the partner to Thomas Chabot, and forming chemistry that simply has not been reproduced since his departure via trade to Winnipeg. That pick the Sens got in exchange for him turned out to be goaltender Leevi Merilainen, who recently made his AHL debut and had a 41-save shutout. Merilainen was also recently called up to the NHL squad and could appear in his first NHL start this season.
Chris Tierney served as a middle sic centerman during his time in Ottawa and played well at times. In his first season, he scored 48 points in his first season with the Sens, which remains a career-high to this day. He left when his contract came up and is now playing with the Montreal Canadiens.
Rudolfs Balcers has bounced around a bit, not quite making the NHL full-time yet.
Josh Norris alone is enough for this trade to be worth it for the Senators. Norris is a legitimate first-line caliber center, who will be playing on Ottawa’s second line with the emergence of another player I’ll mention a bit later. Norris is a thirty-goal scorer who is elite at both sides of the puck. He’s been unlucky on the injury front thus far, but when he’s able to play, he was the first Senator to score 30 goals since the 2011-12 season.
One of the picks received was a 2021 2nd-round pick. With this pick, the Ottawa Senators opted to select Zack Ostapchuk. While Ostapchuk has not yet made his NHL debut, he is one of the many riches from this trade that should be a good NHL player once he is developed.
Another pick included was Florida’s 2019 2nd-round pick, which was used in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes to acquire the 37th pick in the draft. The Ottawa Senators would draft Mads Sogaard with this pick. Sogaard is regarded as Ottawa’s top goaltending prospect and is expected to be the goalie of the future.
That first-round pick was conditional, and it resulted in being the third overall pick in the 2020 draft. With this pick, the Ottawa Senators opted to select Tim Stützle. Stützle is ironically the first Ottawa Senators to score more than 82 points in a single season since Erik Karlsson did it in 2015-16. He’s established himself as Ottawa’s best player, and could honestly be regarded as one of the greatest players to ever play for the Senators organization once it’s all said and done.