Erik Karlsson all-time ranking?

[jcs0218]

Erik Karlsson has 3 Norris Trophies.

How do you rank him now?

And how would you rank him if he got a 4th Norris Trophy?

 

[Dingo]

Leetch.

wherever he is ranked.

If he wins one more….. Coffey, maybe even past Coffey.

There is zero chance Karlsson can catch Coffey in postseason accolades, but he has done very well when he gets to spring hockey, and four Norrises would be something pretty damned special.

I won’t go before my era, except to grandfather Orr in

Orr

Lidstrom
Bourque

Chelios
Pronger
Coffey

Karlsson
Leetch
Stevens
MacIniss
Chara
Niedermayer

just about guaranteed im missing a big name, but…. Roughly that.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Looking up the HoH top 100 (which he failed to make, instead being voted on at #109 in the follow-up project) and knowing he’s controversial, I can see cases for him between the ~90s (Leetch #97, Chara #89) and maybe the late 50s (Pronger #59). But the latter feels like a stretch considering he’s then being compared to players with much more playoff success. I think it’s a tough sell to claim he hasn’t surpassed Salming’s (#84) career value. I think I conservatively like Karlsson in that range: a top-80 or top-90 player all-time.

I don’t think another high scoring Norris season on a bad team will move the dial that much for most of the HoH regulars. Longevity and playoffs will help him the most down the line.

 

[jigglysquishy]

For post Lidstrom defensenen (i.e. born after 1970) there's a logjam after Pronger and Chara. All of Karlsson, Hedman, Doughty, Keith are close enough that they're kind of smushed together.

This season pushed Karlsson ahead for me, but I don't think he's quite ahead of Chara.

Post 1969 birth years

Tier 1
Lidstrom

Tier 2
Pronger
Chara

Tier 3
Karlsson
Keith
Doughty
Hedman

Karlsson peaked tier 2, but the injuries stopped it from really being a thing. Maybe he's there now.

Weber is also someone that I feel is Tier 3 talent wise, but didn't quite get there. Niedermayer is just outside Tier 3 for me.

Makar likely ends up in Tier 2. Fox likely in Tier 3. But it's too early in their careers for me to say confidently.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Leetch.

wherever he is ranked.

If he wins one more….. Coffey, maybe even past Coffey.

There is zero chance Karlsson can catch Coffey in postseason accolades, but he has done very well when he gets to spring hockey, and four Norrises would be something pretty damned special.

I won’t go before my era, except to grandfather Orr in

Orr

Lidstrom
Bourque

Chelios
Pronger
Coffey

Karlsson
Leetch
Stevens
MacIniss
Chara
Niedermayer

just about guaranteed im missing a big name, but…. Roughly that.

the obvious names missing would be keith, doughty, mark howe, rob blake, and the ever contentious langway

your tiers are around where i’d have them

orr

bourque
lidstrom

chelios
pronger
coffey

stevens
doughty
macinnis
keith

chara
howe
leetch

niedermayer
blake

the wildcard being where langway goes. karlsson i’d put somewhere in the stevens/doughty ballpark

oops and hedman. as of now, i have him between keith and the stevens/doughty/karlsson group.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

25th at best

 

[Professor What]

I'm a Karlsson fan, but I also find him pretty hard to rank. I think he should have a couple more Norrises than he does, but it's not as simple as saying, "He should have five Norrises" and ranking him ahead of everybody with less. There have been some injury issues (the achilles thing), and some off years. He's a feast or famine type of player.

 

[MadLuke]

Could be one of the hardest player ever to rank for me.

Norris at 21-24-32 that extreme longevity of eliteness at first glance, much widder Norris winning window than Bourque, a year longer than Lidstrom.

But there a large injuries holes in there, SJS being a bit of an irrelevant team, do you have a Norris season on the 23 San Josee if no one is in the forest kind of thing.

Do you take him over Hedman to build a team around Tampa keep Hedman without thinking I feel like, but how many players do you take over 2016 Karlsson for a playoff run, it is outnorm.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I'd take Doughty, Keith, Weber and Hedman's career for my franchise over Karlsson's without thinking twice. Overrated by his trophy case. At his peak he was greater than all of them but his peak was super short.

 

[Cruor]

I'm trying to think of a more contentious player in modern times, and off the top of my head the only guy I come up with is Paul Coffey.

Fitting in a way, no?

 

[The Panther]

Yeah, I have no idea how to rank this guy either (if such things are important). I have no strong personal feeling towards Karlsson one way or the other, but I cannot form any kind of strong opinion about him.

One issue for me is that I don't follow the players or his (two) teams, so I only occasionally see him play. I did see him play a couple of great games for Ottawa during that one heroic playoff run, but every time I've seen him play since then he's been bad. Not just below average, but BAD. (This includes a regular season game back in March [?], where he was downright embarrassingly awful, to the extent that he was giving up pucks at the blue-line and not even attempting to get back defensively. Of course, his club had nothing to play for at that point, but not a good look from a Norris winner...)

Obviously, I haven't seen the player at his best very much, so I'm not going to judge him on that, but I also didn't see Ray Bourque that consistently, yet every time I did see him he was good.

So yeah, I do get the impression (and it's only an impression) that Karlsson is sort-of a 'feast or famine' type of player.

 

[JackSlater]

I'd put him in the group of elite 90s defencemen below Bourque and Chelios, so with guys like MacInnis, Stevens, and Leetch. Comfortably above guys like Niedermayer or Chara though. If he stayed healthy I think he'd be in the next tier.

As for the last question, I'm not mindlessly trophy counting so I have no idea where I'd rank him with another Norris trophy. He should have won a few more prior to 2023 but really, it's a poll of NHL media people voting for a trophy where factors completely out of Karlsson's control (ie how well other players play) impact his results. Long way of saying that an elite season helps, but it matters how great he is. If he duplicates his 2023 season next year I won't care that much, Norris or not.

 

[reckoning]

I don't like counting trophies, and this is a prime example. Nobody had a Norris-calibre season in 2022-23. But the award had to go to somebody.

There's been lots of seasons where the Norris runner-up had a more impressive season than anybody did this past year: Potvin in '81, Stevens in '94, MacInnis in '03, Park, Bourque and Lidstrom multiple times. But as the years go on , this will only be remembered as a Norris for Karlsson, thereby inflating his reputation.

I'm not saying this to be anti-Karlsson. The same would apply if Fox or somebody else had won. It was just a dead season for top-level defencemen performances.

 

[Anidalife]

One thing I will say about Karlsson is that his (short) peak is legitimately better than most names in this thread. Remember he was playing during Crosby's prime, and for maybe a year and a half I seriously considered Karlsson to be more impactful on the ice. I don't think I seriously thought that about any other player relative to Crosby until McDavid. (Tiebreaker went to Karlsson just due to the fact he plays more minutes per game than Crosby)

Though if we're talking about his whole career so far, relative to his peers, then I might not even put him at Doughty/Keith/Chara/Hedman level, even though I believe he's better than all of them. Ya it was due to injuries but longevity has to count for something.

If we look at longevity a bit less, and keep a more open mind about how a defenceman can impact the game, then he might be just below the Lidstrom tier right now. He has been doing things not seen since Orr, and the gap between him and his peers offensively is basically as big as between McDavid and other forwards. That's got to count for something.

 

[JianYang]

I don't like counting trophies, and this is a prime example. Nobody had a Norris-calibre season in 2022-23. But the award had to go to somebody.

There's been lots of seasons where the Norris runner-up had a more impressive season than anybody did this past year: Potvin in '81, Stevens in '94, MacInnis in '03, Park, Bourque and Lidstrom multiple times. But as the years go on , this will only be remembered as a Norris for Karlsson, thereby inflating his reputation.

I'm not saying this to be anti-Karlsson. The same would apply if Fox or somebody else had won. It was just a dead season for top-level defencemen performances.

I've considered karlsson perhaps the most high event dman I've ever seen. That is both a compliment and criticism.

 

[JackSlater]

I don't like counting trophies, and this is a prime example. Nobody had a Norris-calibre season in 2022-23. But the award had to go to somebody.

There's been lots of seasons where the Norris runner-up had a more impressive season than anybody did this past year: Potvin in '81, Stevens in '94, MacInnis in '03, Park, Bourque and Lidstrom multiple times. But as the years go on , this will only be remembered as a Norris for Karlsson, thereby inflating his reputation.

I'm not saying this to be anti-Karlsson. The same would apply if Fox or somebody else had won. It was just a dead season for top-level defencemen performances.

Always remember, there were just as many Hart trophies given out among Gretzky, Lemieux, and Yzerman in 1989 as there were among Perry, Sedin, and St. Louis in 2011.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Erik Karlsson isn't just bad at defense, he is unbelievably bad - a total pylon. There is plenty of video on this if you like. The lowlights are quite....low.

The offensive numbers are very impressive, but I'm not real sure how to compare them as Karlsson allows more goals against while he's on the ice than any other player, and it's not particularly close. In fact he was on the ice for 20-some percent more goals against this past season that any other player dating back to 2010.

I'll say that again: Take the most on-ice goals against in a season of any player dating back 13 years, then add 20%, and Karlsson is still worse than that.

He was basically green lighted to be the 4th forward, so he's creating offense at the expense of defense, his team was putrid and won very few games this way, he gets favorable match-ups as a result of offensive players occupying the defenseman.

I'm not even sure a team could win with him playing this style while taking up $11M in cap space or whatever.

Don't me wrong, he's still likely a net plus as a player, but IMO he deserved to be nowhere near the Norris trophy.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I'd take Doughty, Keith, Weber and Hedman's career for my franchise over Karlsson's without thinking twice. Overrated by his trophy case. At his peak he was greater than all of them but his peak was super short.

3 Norris trophies and twice runner up, that’s super short? , sure ok if you think so.

 

[Dingo]

3 Norris trophies and twice runner up, that’s super short? , sure ok if you think so.

I hope he stays healthy for what are likely his last few potentially elite years.

Because I get what that poster is saying… I mean, perhaps it shouldn’t be described as ‘super short’ but rather ‘broken’

I think what he is seeing is how many are seeing Erik - lights out for 5ish years, and this past year was just a fluke (where he lined up as a forward but they gave him a Norris… lol, I know better, I watched)

Anyways - if he can stack on even one more, but preferably 2-3 more high end seasons now, then it will look much more like a 12-15 year prime with a bunch of injury problems right in the middle of it.

I was stoked to see him get his third Norris, and I think I’ll be happy with that - he deserved one more during his Ottawa ‘peak’ and he has been shortchanged with luck with injuries and teammates, imo. But maybe, just maybe, he is going to play at this level for a few more, except on a good team… then it will be interesting to see where the talk goes.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Erik Karlsson isn't just bad at defense, he is unbelievably bad - a total pylon. There is plenty of video on this if you like. The lowlights are quite....low.

The offensive numbers are very impressive, but I'm not real sure how to compare them as Karlsson allows more goals against while he's on the ice than any other player, and it's not particularly close. In fact he was on the ice for 20-some percent more goals against this past season that any other player dating back to 2010.

I'll say that again: Take the most on-ice goals against in a season of any player dating back 13 years, then add 20%, and Karlsson is still worse than that.

He was basically green lighted to be the 4th forward, so he's creating offense at the expense of defense, his team was putrid and won very few games this way, he gets favorable match-ups as a result of offensive players occupying the defenseman.

I'm not even sure a team could win with him playing this style while taking up $11M in cap space or whatever.

Don't me wrong, he's still likely a net plus as a player, but IMO he deserved to be nowhere near the Norris trophy.

Yeah, I like my top defenseman to be able to play defense too.

 

[MadLuke]

this past season

The Sharks this year at 5v5 were 96-96 GF-GA teams with Karlsson on the ice.

72 GF, 124 GA when he was not, that a minus 52 team to a 0 team swing.

Scoring has been going up and up since 2010, many of the recent highest scoring season were shortened by lock-out-covid, with Karlsson playing over 2100 minutes last season on a terrible team would be expected to be really high in GA.

He is extremely high event and it is hard to know if that much better with him than without would have "scaled" on a good team or stayed being just a +0 player, making things too random (which is perfect if you are bad and happily take the coin flip for sure, not if you are good), but it would be expected that a player with over 2000 on this year Sharks to have that most goals against recordm, doing it with no PK time too.

 

[jigglysquishy]

@Hockey Outsider did the math for this year. Karlsson spent a ton of time out with an empty net. If you remove those goals, his goals for/against looks immensely better.

He's by no means good defensively (though I think he was quite serviceable in 2016), but he's also not as bad as the raw numbers indicate.

 

[Ben White]

3 Norris trophies and twice runner up, that’s super short? , sure ok if you think so.

Exaxtly, too be that injury riddled throughout your career and still manage to string together 5 super elite full seasons as the best or almost best Dman in the league is the very opposite of what I would call a “short peak”, it rather proves that he’s one of these players when down years due to injury shouldn’t be held against them and that he deserves the benefit of the doubt in those years.

 

[GMR]

I would take Hedman over Chara. Certainly offensively. His peak is higher than Chara's. He just wasn't as mean and tough defensively, though Hedman is good in his own end.

Chara is probably over Karlsson just because Karlsson is weaker defensively. It's like comparing Ozolinsh to Stevens in the late 90's.

Karlsson is basically Coffey, minus the elite players around him. Not as great a skater as Coffey and probably not as good defensively (ouch). But offensively similar if you put him on the 1980's Oilers in a more scoring era.

Karlsson could be ahead of Leetch, even if Leetch has a higher peak. Those early years in San Jose kind of hurt his legacy though. Those two are close.

 

[Ben White]

As far as offensive Dmen goes:
1. Orr
2A. Karlsson
2B. Coffey (slight edge to Karlsson due to being able to be the top dog on his team, putting up multiple “first since Orr” records without superstar teammates etc.)
4. Makar (based on potential + career so far)
5. Leetch
6. Dahlin (based on potential + last season)
7. Housley
8. Josi
9. Subban
10. Burns