Is the Erik Karlsson experiment in Pittsburgh working out?

Erik Karlsson was arguably the biggest addition of the offseason, going to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a massive trade, and it was expected that he’d help get the Pens back into the playoffs after a disappointing 2022-23 season. So far, they haven’t had an ideal start, going only 3-4-0 to start the season.

Rob Rossi joined Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about Karlsson and how his time on the Penguins has gone so far.

Rob Rossi: I think the results have been mixed. Not because Karlsson’s played poorly, Karlsson’s been very good, in fact better defensively than I expected. But, a lot of talk with Pittsburgh was how would the power play work, and it hasn’t worked at all.

I think Karlsson’s been doing everything he can at even strength. He had a game in Detroit where he was the best player on the ice by a mile. The Penguins lost that game. There’s been a couple games this year, one of their wins was in Washington and he did the same thing.

Power play hasn’t worked. Power play only has 18 chances on the season, they’re not drawing penalties. I think that’s hurt a lot because they need repetition against other teams, and they haven’t had that yet. I also think that one thing that might be going on in Pittsburgh when it relates to Karlsson is he’s fit in very well, but specifically on the power play, the sense I get is Crosby and Malkin are kind of waiting for him to take charge, but they haven’t necessarily expressed that, and Karlsson’s sort of differential to them because of all that they’ve done and all they’ve won in Pittsburgh.

So I think that will clear up as they get more opportunities, but they’re not able to play the way they used to to draw a lot of penalties either.

You can watch the full episode here…