Penguins acquire defenseman Erik Karlsson in 3-team trade

The Pittsburgh Penguins are still pretty far from being considered a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup.

But they took a considerable step toward that endeavor Sunday.

In a multi-faceted blockbuster trade that involved three teams, the Penguins added one of the most prolific defensemen in NHL history to their midst, bringing in Erik Karlsson, a three-time winner of the James Norris Memorial Trophy, an award that recognizes the league’s top blue liner who displays “greatest all-round ability in the position.”

Karlsson, who turned 33 in May, won the trophy last season by producing a staggering 101 points (25 goals, 76 assists) in 82 games while averaging 25 minutes, 37 seconds of ice time per contest for a San Jose Sharks team that missed the postseason.

The transaction also included the Montreal Canadiens and 12 players or draft picks in total.

• In addition to Karlsson, the Penguins acquired forward Rem Pitlick, forward Dillon Hamaliuk and the Sharks’ 2026 third-round draft pick.

• The Sharks acquired the Penguins’ 2024 first-round draft pick (which includes protection in the event it is one of the top 10 selections), forward Mikael Granlund, defenseman Jan Rutta and forward Mike Hoffman.

(Note: Should the Penguins’ first-round selection in 2024 be a top-10 pick, they can opt to send their first-round selection in 2025, which has no protection, instead.)

• The Canadiens acquired the Penguins’ 2025 second-round draft pick, defenseman Jeff Petry, goaltender Casey DeSmith and forward Nathan Legare.

Karlsson has four years remaining on his contract and has a salary cap hit of $11.5 million. The Sharks will retain $1.5 million of cap hit for the remainder of the contract.

Pitlick has one year remaining on his contract with a salary cap hit of $1.1 million.

Hamaliuk has one year remaining on a three-year entry-level contract that carries a salary cap hit of $789,167.

Petry has two years remaining on his contract with a salary cap hit of $6.25 million, and the Penguins will retain $1,562,500 of that over each season.

After this trade, the Penguins are projected by Cap Friendly to be $79,342 over the NHL’s salary cap ceiling of $83.5 million. They entered the day projected to be $3,216,842 over the ceiling.

The Penguins had been investigating a potential trade for Karlsson since June.

“Any time a player like that becomes available or talked about, I think it’s incumbent on me to reach out and see if there’s a fit there for us,” Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas said July 1. “Anytime there’s a player of that caliber that becomes available throughout my time here, especially in this next stretch, it’s probably realistic to think that we’ll be involved or see if there’s a way that we can be involved and add him to our group.”

Salary retention was perhaps the biggest factor in crafting this transaction. Karlsson’s overall salary cap hit is the fifth largest in the NHL entering the 2023-24 season.

“Throughout the process, there was a lot of teams asking us to retain a lot of salary,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said during a conference call with media Sunday. “It was something we really didn’t want to do. We wanted to kind of be able to have some (salary) cap flexibility and financial flexibility to be able to add players down the road that fit what we wanted to do. We really didn’t want to go down that path of retaining a lot of money. Kyle was aggressive, but Kyle was really willing to make some concessions on his stand to make this whole thing work. Both sides made concessions on not only the retention number but the package in general just to get the deal done.”

Karlsson’s production last season marked the 15th time in NHL history that a defenseman reached the century mark in points and the first since Brian Leetch of the New York Rangers totaled 102 points (22 goals, 80 assists) in 80 games during the 1991-92 campaign.

As one might suspect, the right-handed Karlsson (6-foot, 190 pounds) is a force on the power play. Clocking an average of 3:24 of ice time on the man advantage per contest last season, Karlsson totaled 27 power-play points (five goals, 22 assists).

Defense is not a particularly celebrated part of Karlsson’s game, however. During the 2022-23 campaign, Karlsson averaged only 22 seconds of short-handed ice time per contest.

Karlsson will be entering his 15th NHL season this fall. A native of Landsbro, Sweden, Karlsson was a first-round selection (No. 15 overall) by the Ottawa Senators in 2008 and spent the first nine years of his NHL career with that franchise before being traded to the Sharks during the 2018 offseason.

Pitlick and Hamaliuk likely were included in the transaction to keep the Canadiens and Sharks well below the league’s limit of 50 NHL contracts for a season.

The 26-year-old Pitlick split the 2022-23 season between the Canadiens and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Laval Rocket. In 46 NHL contests, Pitlick, a center, scored 15 points (six goals, nine assists) while averaging 12:55 of ice time per contest.

A left-handed shot, Pitlick (5-11, 186) also has played for the Minnesota Wild and the Nashville Predators, the latter of which selected him in the third round (No. 76 overall) in the 2016 NHL Draft.

Hamaliuk, 22, was a second-round pick (No. 55 overall) of the Sharks in 2019 and has yet to play in the NHL. Last season, injuries limited the left-handed Hamaliuk (6-3, 190) to six games and seven points (four goals, seven assists) at the ECHL level with the Wichita Thunder.

Granlund, Petry and Rutta were three prominent acquisitions by former general manager Ron Hextall. All three failed to live up to expectations, however.

The most scrutinized of those additions to the Penguins’ nest was Granlund who was acquired via trade with the Nashville Predators on March 1 in exchange for a second-round pick in this year’s draft.

Primarily deployed on the third line, the 31-year-old Granlund, who carries a salary cap hit of $5 million, struggled to find consistency as he appeared in 21 games and scored five points (one goal, four assists) while averaging 15:35 of ice time per contest.

Petry and Rutta were added in July 2022 in hopes of reshaping the right side of the blue line, but injuries largely derailed those ambitions.

The Penguins acquired Petry in a trade with the Canadiens (that sent popular left-handed defenseman Mike Matheson to Montreal). Various ailments limited the 35-year-old Petry to 61 games and 31 points last season (five goals, 26 assists) as he averaged 22:21 of ice time per contest.

Rutta was the Penguins’ most prominent free agent signing during the 2022 offseason. The 33-year-old also was hobbled by a multitude of maladies and was limited to 56 games and nine points (three goals, six assists).

With Petry and Rutta moving on, reserves Mark Friedman, Chad Ruhwedel and Ty Smith figure to be the leading candidates to man the right side of the third defensive pairing.

DeSmith departs having spent four of the past five seasons as the Penguins’ primary backup goaltender. Last season, DeSmith, 31, appeared in 38 games and posted a 15-16-4 record, a 3.17 goals-against average and a .905 save percentage.

His exodus clears the way for Alex Nedeljkovic, a free agent signing in July, to become the primary backup to starter Tristan Jarry.

Legare’s once-promising but ultimately disappointing tenure with the Penguins came to an end after four years in the organization. A third-round pick (No. 74 overall) in the 2019 NHL Draft, Legare was seen as a first-round talent by Penguins management under former general manager Jim Rutherford. But in two professional seasons at the AHL level with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Legare’s development as a professional was limited.

Last season, the 22-year-old Legare, a native of Montreal, appeared in 68 AHL games and scored 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists).