The future of Erik Karlsson on the San Jose Sharks gets even murkier after he expresses his thanks to the fans after a disappointing end to the season.
On Friday morning Erik Karlsson and many other San Jose Sharks players tweeted out their thanks to the fans of Team Teal. However many believe that in EK65’s case his post suggested that this was more of a goodbye, than a see ya next year.
Approximately 8 months ago the arrival of Erik Karlsson took the San Jose Sharks and the hockey world by storm. The block buster trade made by General Manager Doug Wilson put the San Jose Sharks into immediate Stanley Cup Contender Status.
His impact on the ice was immense, with the San Jose Sharks looking almost unbeatable with Karlsson. For most the regular season the San Jose Sharks were at the top of almost all the possession and goal scoring statistical categories. Yet once again he was plagued by injuries, which led to the Sharks eventual demise in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Despite being hurt his elite skill was on full display during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He led the team in assists and tied Brent Burns in points during the postseason. Team Teal’s transition play and shot production suffered mightily when Karlsson was clearly not himself in Games 5 and 6 against the St. Louis Blues.
San Jose is better team with EK65 (at least in the short-term). Which is why his post today thanking Sharks Territory for their support sent the fan base and the hockey world into a frenzy on social media.
Thank you to the entire @SanJoseSharks organization, fans, and especially teammates. It was a great run that ended too early. But lots of great memories where created. The entire Bay Area has been nothing but classy and respectful to me and my family. Thank you.
— Erik Karlsson (@ErikKarlsson65) May 24, 2019
Nothing is etched in stone, but reading this from the perspective of a Sharks fan it’s hard to fight off the feeling of dread slowly creeping in with free agency approaching on July 1st.
Team Teal has roughly 24.7 million in cap space, per capfriendly.com they will no doubt try to use a large sum of that to to angle Erik Karlsson back into Shark territory. However the team had all year to get him signed and failed to do so. Now it’s looking more and more like Doug Wilson will have to take a different approach to what will definitely by another wild off-season.
This is a tough break for Sharks fans who felt pretty confident in their abilities to keep EK65 in San Jose, especially with the organizations track record of retaining players after trades. It’ll be a long month of June for Team Teal, they’ll have watch two teams slug it out for the Stanley Cup that really was up for grabs after the first round.