Erik Karlsson doesn’t wear a letter on the front of his jersey as a defenseman with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Captain Sidney Crosby, along with alternate captains Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin, aptly meet the requirements of those assignments.
But that doesn’t mean Karlsson isn’t a leader on this team.
He is quite vocal. Especially if you happen to be fluent in English and Swedish, his native tongue.
“He doesn’t need to have a letter on his jersey,” said Penguins forward Rickard Rakell, a fellow Swede. “You can hear him all the time.”
A lot has been said about Karlsson ever since the Penguins swung one of the biggest trades in NHL history to acquire him in August 2023.
And much of it wasn’t terribly kind.
The Penguins missed each of the previous two postseasons since Karlsson’s arrival. And through those failures, he had fallen well short of expectations that were situated in a rare level of the stratosphere.
“Obviously, (it hasn’t) gone the way that we expected it to or wanted it to,” Karlsson said during the Penguins’ exit interviews last April, following the conclusion of the 2024-25 season. “Personally, I think it’s been lots of ups and downs, too volatile than you would have liked.”
Nearly one year later, everyone with a vested interest in the Penguins seems to like what Karlsson is currently offering.
In 75 games in the regular season, he had 66 points (15 goals, 51 assists) while averaging 23 minutes, 36 seconds of ice time per contest, tops on the team among non- goaltenders.
ERIK KARLSSON, WE ARE NOT WORTHY ????
TIE GAME pic.twitter.com/RgTVTRpjrI
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) March 21, 2026
Beyond the base offensive figures, Karlsson largely carried the team’s sagging postseason hopes throughout February and March when Crosby and Malkin were sidelined by injuries. For that, Karlsson was named the team’s MVP.
“He obviously plays a very unique game, especially as a defenseman with the plays that he’s able to make and how great of a skater that he is,” Penguins forward Bryan Rust said. “He’ll maybe take a little bit more risk, think a little bit more offensively, do things a little bit differently. This year, you can see he’s got so much confidence in that. He’s obviously been able to do it in other places before and do what he needs to do.
“This year, for whatever reason, he’s had that sense of comfort where he’s able to excel at his game.”
His resurgence has been a leading factor in the Penguins reaching the postseason for the first time since 2022.
Why has his third season with the Penguins been so much better than the first two?
“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what,” Karlsson said. “Collectively, as a group, we’ve obviously had a good season. And usually, when the people around you are feeling good as well, it makes you feel good. Everyone in here is, I think, relatively satisfied with how we’re feeling as individual players and as a team right now.”
The elephant in the room when it comes to Karlsson’s improved play is on the bench. Or behind it.
Mike Sullivan was jettisoned as head coach last offseason and replaced by Dan Muse.
Throughout the season, Karlsson failed in his attempts at being subtle about his feelings over that augmentation.
“Obviously, very challenging two years, I think, for not only me,” Karlsson said Oct. 6. “I’m sure he felt challenged, too. We did not accomplish what we were hoping to do when I got traded here. And when you don’t win games and things are not going your way, and you don’t really find any answers to why, it gets frustrating.”
As the Penguins prepare for the upcoming postseason, he is far more buoyant over what life under Muse has been like.
“This year, obviously, we’ve played up to our standards individually in here, which has brought the team result to where we are right now,” Karlsson said earlier this month. “It was a fresh start for everybody this year. We had to start over a little bit, which sometimes, after years of not getting where you want to go, can spark something.”
Karlsson has largely been the primary ignition source for much of the Penguins’ success in recent weeks.
“You can see with his confidence,” Rakell said. “He feels that even if he tries something and it doesn’t work, we want him to try to do those things and we want him to keep trying to be a difference maker in the games. If it doesn’t work out, we try to back him up. He doesn’t think twice about trying something or playing his game. That makes a big difference.
“He plays on his instincts and reactions instead of limiting himself.”
There were no limits to the speculation over Karlsson’s future after last season. In fact, it was seemingly assumed that management would try to move him in order to facilitate a rebuilding process for an aging roster.
After the 2024-25 campaign, Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas suggested Karlsson would be part of the solution for the Penguins. But was blunt in auditing Karlsson’s tenure with the club to date.
“We expect him to be one of the people that pulls us from where we’re at and into contention,” Dubas said last spring. “My push to him would be that his actions have to match his ambitions. That’s in consistency, preparation, training like every other player on the team.
“I think he’s shown throughout the year that he has another level to him, at times playing for us.”
Karlsson understood the speculation. But didn’t dwell on it.
“The way things were going (with the Penguins), it didn’t make much sense for keeping someone like me around,” Karlsson said. “So, I can understand why people talk about it. Obviously, now, it’s the opposite. It’s funny how it works.
“At the end of the day, I’ve always enjoyed my time here. I still do. That’s all I can really focus on and control. Don’t really worry about what can happen in the future.”
The recent past hasn’t been all that great for the Penguins, who haven’t been to the postseason in three seasons. And it’s been even worse for Karlsson, who last saw playoff action as a member of the San Jose Sharks in 2019.
In total, Karlsson has reached the postseason only six times over a dazzling 17-year career.
The closest Karlsson came to the Stanley Cup was in 2017 when he dragged a determined but limited Ottawa Senators squad to the Eastern Conference Final.
Were it not for former Penguins forward Chris Kunitz plastering the most accurate one-timer of his career to win Game 7, 3-2, in double overtime, Karlsson and the Senators would have advanced to the Stanley Cup Final.
On this day three years ago, Chris Kunitz buried the overtime winner to send the Penguins back to the cup and forever kill the Ottawa Senators pic.twitter.com/toqe0BBUie
— Nick Put???? (@_ChickenJoe_) May 25, 2020
Instead, the Penguins won their fifth and most recent championship.
“If we win against Pittsburgh that series, I think we have a really good chance of winning the Cup,” Karlsson said. “They went on and did so. It’s not easy. We had a lot of things go right for us back then. We were right there. But at the end of the day, you’re playing against a team that has that same feeling. It can go either way. Very unfortunate, obviously.
“But at the same time, it just motivates you to be able to be in those situations against and at least give yourself a chance.”
As is the case with just about any topic, Karlsson is verbose about what being in the postseason means.
“Haven’t had many chances at it,” Karlsson said. “It’s obviously something that, at this stage of my career, I’m very excited for. That’s something that I hope I get multiple occasions to be in this situation but obviously very excited to be where we are right now and looking forward to playing the real games.”