{"id":821839,"date":"2026-08-22T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821839\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:12:10","slug":"3-questions-facing-pittsburgh-penguins-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821839\/","title":{"rendered":"3 questions facing Pittsburgh Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>3. Can Karlsson have a repeat performance?<\/p>\n<p>Last season, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/erik-karlsson-8474578\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Erik Karlsson<\/a> looked like every bit of the defenseman Pittsburgh felt it was acquiring from the San Jose Sharks in a three-team trade that also involved the Montreal Canadiens on Aug. 3, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>After being relatively quiet in his first two seasons with the Penguins, the 36-year-old had 66 points (15 goals, 51 assists) in 75 games, second on Pittsburgh behind center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/sidney-crosby-8471675\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sidney Crosby<\/a>\u00a0(74 points; 29 goals, 45 assists in 68 games). Karlsson was also more responsible defensively, which was helped by his chemistry with defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/parker-wotherspoon-8478450\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Parker Wotherspoon<\/a>\u00a0on the top pair.<\/p>\n<p>Wotherspoon is gone, however, traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/kaedan-korczak-8481527\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kaedan Korczak<\/a>\u00a0on June 30.<\/p>\n<p>Karlsson, who has been voted the winner of the Norris Trophy three times as the League&#8217;s top\u00a0defenseman (2012, 2015, 2023), will need to put up the same numbers, if not better, with a new partner in the final season of an eight-year, $92 million contract ($11.5 million average annual value).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that the potential is definitely there to improve, roster-wise,&#8221; Karlsson said on May 1. &#8220;It&#8217;s exciting times. Obviously, haven&#8217;t been a lot of fun here lately.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3. Can Karlsson have a repeat performance? Last season, Erik Karlsson looked like every bit of the defenseman&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-821839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}