OTTAWA – Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid? Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby? Ottawa Senators coach Guy Boucher has the answer: Erik Karlsson.
“I think he’s the best player in the world,” Boucher said Monday. “Basically, he has an impact on everything — your breakouts, your transition, your own zone, your power play, your offensive play. He is who he is. He’s such a presence. He’s not just a hockey player; it’s everything around him, too.”
Karlsson, a two-time Norris Trophy winner and the award’s runner-up the last two seasons, rejoins the Senators for Tuesday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks after recovering from foot surgery last June.
The 27-year-old Swede is inarguably one of the best defencemen in the game, even if he has been past the National Hockey League playoffs’ first round only twice and his freewheeling style – almost unique in today’s intensely-structured NHL — makes Karlsson more suited to scoring goals than preventing them.
There is so much interest in the return of one of hockey’s most dynamic players that Boucher’s media scrum Monday was just large enough that it was difficult for someone at the back to hear.
Did he really say best player and not best defenceman?
“I think he’s the best player in the world,” Boucher repeated for clarity. “First of all, he’s my player. Obviously, the Crosbys and the McDavids are the top forwards in the world, for sure. Just for me, Karlsson is the best defenceman in the world and I think defencemen, being on the ice for 30 or 30-some minutes, have such an impact. That’s why I see it this way.”
Fair enough. But maybe the best player in the world should win something to earn that honour. Of course, this quaint notion hasn’t stopped many of us from anointing McDavid as the best player in the world.
McDavid, however, already has a Hart Trophy at age 20 and is in just his third NHL season. Karlsson is starting his ninth.
Boucher is his fourth head coach. The Senators have turnstiled through coaches the last decade like Karlsson has turnstiled opposing forwards through the neutral zone. Anyone who has been on the Senators for a while has to own some of this upheaval.
It didn’t help optics, for Karlsson or the team, that when former general manager Bryan Murray fired Paul MacLean three years ago, he said the coach was too tough on Ottawa’s best players. The firing came the day MacLean and Karlsson argued at the bench during a 4-3 win against the Canucks.
It did nothing to improve the view from afar that Karlsson, the team’s best player, was really the guy running things.
“Erik likes to play the way he likes to play,” Boucher’s assistant, Marc Crawford, acknowledged Monday. “He’s a lot like Patrick Roy that way. Patrick liked to play his way. But he always had the ability to back it up, which is why he had such a huge buy-in from his teammates.
“I think Erik is the same way. He has the ability to demand from his teammates because he always backs up his own game. I haven’t really thought about it until now but Patrick and Erik are a lot alike that way.”
Crawford, who coached Roy and the Colorado Avalanche to a Stanley Cup in 1996, had another fascinating comparison to make regarding Karlsson.
“He’s one of those guys that sees the game better than anybody,” Crawford continued. “Joel Quenneville, behind the bench, he’d dictate exactly what happened to you. Erik is the same. He dictates what’s happening in the game.”
The Senators haven’t needed that influence through five games. Without Karlsson, they’re 3-0-2 and just swept McDavid’s Oilers and the Calgary Flames by an aggregate score of 12-1. Ottawa won 3-2 in a shootout in Vancouver one week ago, giving the Senators’ their first 3-0 tour through Western Canada in franchise history.
Boucher’s team leads the NHL in defending (1.6 goals-against per game), is seventh in scoring (3.86) and first in penalty killing (15-for-15). And they will be even better with Karlsson, who played some of the best hockey of his career in leading the Senators to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final last spring, when Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins eliminated Ottawa in double-overtime.
Karlsson played with torn ligaments in his foot, which required surgery.
“I don’t think I’ve been 100 per cent since I entered this league,” Karlsson said after his only full practice this season. “I don’t think anyone is. As you get older, you’re never going to feel as good as you did when you were a kid.”
Asked, nine years into his career, if winning the Stanley Cup has become his singular goal, Karlsson said: “I think it has always been. But I think you just realize it a little more now what you have to do. Earlier in your career, you rely on other people to take those reins. It’s always been a priority, always going to be the No. 1 priority. We got a good taste of it last year and it was a lot of fun. Now we just have to make sure we get through the grind of the season and get prepared to be in a playoff position.
“I do what I can do every night out there for my team. Whether that’s enough or not for everybody else, it doesn’t really matter. I think we’ve done a good job here … getting everybody involved. You could see that last year. At the end of the day, I do my part and I rely on everybody else to do theirs. And if everybody does, it usually turns out good not only for the team but for individuals as well.”
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