Erik Karlsson trade talks pick up, Vancouver emerges as a candidate

Right when it looked like Erik Karlsson was staying put in Ottawa, reports have surfaced that he could be on the move to the Western Conference before the season starts.

August dead zone? Nonsense. One of the biggest trades of this decade could be on the horizon with Erik Karlsson possibly on the move again.

Rumors have surrounded an Erik Karlsson trade for months, but with weeks of no news on the Erik Karlsson front, all hopes of a trade before the beginning of the regular season seemed dead.

Elliotte Friedman just dropped a nuclear bomb and reported that the Erik Karlsson sweepstakes have begun again, this time with some new candidates.

The 28-year-old Karlsson is set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this upcoming season, and has publicly said that he “is going to get what I’m worth, and it’s going to be no less, no matter where I’m going.”

Whats really interesting about this report is that Vancouver has emerged as a candidate to land Erik Karlsson. The Canucks are in the middle of the long rebuilding process and have spent the last several years acquiring youth through the draft and through trades.

Would they be willing to grind a halt to that whole process in order to land a player like Erik Karlsson?

Several players would have to be shipped and would change the whole identity of the team. Quinn Hughes, Vancouver’s 2018 first-round pick, will have to be a basic requirement and who knows who else the Canucks would have to add in order to meet Ottawa’s requirements?

Would they go as far as to include a player like Elias Petterson or Brock Boeser?

Where this does begin to work is that the Canucks have the cap space to take on Bobby Ryan’s contract in order to lessen the overall asking price and Ottawa has been rumored to be attempting to tack Ryan on to a Karlsson trade in order to shave costs.

While Vancouver was the team specifically mentioned by Friedman, he did also mention that the destination is likely a Western Conference team. That could include previously rumored teams like the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights.

Last season was a tough one for Erik Karlsson. After missing the beginning of the year while recovering from an ankle injury from the Senators playoff run the previous year, Karlsson took a bit of time to re-find his game and struggled a bit during the year.

Even despite all that and the whole Senators team going up in flames around him, Karlsson still posted 62 points in 71 games.

While that is still impressive for a down season, that was Karlsson’s lowest scoring total in a full season since 2010-11 and nine goals was the lowest goal scoring total in a full season of his NHL career.

No matter what happens, it’s hard to imagine Erik Karlsson as still a member of the Ottawa Senators come the 2019 offseason with all that he’s gone through with the organization.

Whether by trade before the season, a trade at the deadline, or free agency, all the odds point to him being out the door. After the whole John Tavares saga this summer, Ottawa needs to take heed and get assets in return for Karlsson if they are not certain that they can lock him down.