Am I the only one who thinks that Karlsson piling up points for an abysmal team with a minus 87 goal differential that didn't care much about his defense since they were losing 3 out of every 4 games while playing more than 60 games for the first time since 2017-18 doesn't necessarily translate into success with a playoff or playoff-aspiring team that is going to have a very different set of defensive and durability expectations?
Not sure if it translates to success, that propably depends on your expectations. Offensively he's great, but it's not a coincidence that his teams bleed goals against when he steps the ice. You can limit that to a degree by pairing him with a defensively elite D but that's going to be a tough role for whoever gets it if you keep giving Karlsson an open license to play like a forward, which he did have in San Jose.
His 3.7 GF / per 60 is insane for a team as bad as the Sharks but the GA / per 60 number is still 4.2 which is also... brutal. I don't think any Playoff team can keep employing him like that but cutting his goals against numbers will certainly come with a decline in offensive numbers too. Playing with better line-mates will help his numbers to a degree but i'd be shocked if he kept numbers like that because he played over 25 minutes and had ~65% zone starts while not facing the best opposing players. Going from a bad team will also mean that they aren't constantly playing from behind in which situations he can join up the play even more freely.
I don't think he will crack 100 points, or even 90 in his new team. The two teams he keeps being linked are also somewhat weird fits for me. Carolina is a great team and i think he'd do well there, especially if paired with Slavin. But that would swinge the fence a lot if acquiring Karlsson means moving on from Pesce. But even the worse thing on that is that he'd again be on the same team with Brent Burns, which seems mind-boggling given that it was already deemed to be a failure in San Jose.
Penguins makes sense given their situation. They are old and washed up but want to give it a one more go and Karlsson is offensively the best game-breaker available right now. But geez defensively their right-side of the defense would be hilariously bad with both Karlsson and Letang. It does make for some exciting hockey for their fans before they fade away to a long rebuild.
