the cap space tho
sadly cant rewrite the past whats done is done

No take backs lmao

As composer Stephen Still wrote in his song "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes", "Don't let the past, remind us of what we are not now"

Gotta think that if it wasn't Karlsson, it would have been someone else.

You're right. But gee after seeing the injured Karlsson in his last two years in Ottawa, he seemed to be on the decline. But he did help San Jose go the Cup final in his first half season with the Sharks.
I wonder if any other team offering a similar package to Ottawa, and Sharks felt they had to offer such a big package

I'd assume that there were a few teams involved. I mean, San Jose obviously fell into the name-value trap, and went crazy on it, but I'd imagine if that Stutzle pick ended up in the 20's, we'd probably look at this at little more gently. I feel like at the time of the trade, Sens fans weren't overly happy with the return.

Sens fans were going nuts, thinking Melynk was cheap and didn't want to resign EK. Apparently EK was offered 10m. But sports fans IMO don't understand the concept of free agency....when it's one of their players, They feel like it's a betrayal if a player leaves via UFA, despite the fact they feel so great when a player wants to leave another team and join their team.

100%. Majority of fans have no issue with ownership/management blatently manipulating service time either. In fairness, Melnyk didn't do himself many P.R. favours, which certainly didn't help.

Proof that the Senators won that trade

Another thing is that they could still potentially have Pavelski

First it was Tavares. Then Karlsson. Sharks owner wanted to land high end talent at the end of Jumbo and Patty. It was the most active I had ever see Hasso who is usually holed up in Germany away from any NHL spotlight.

Karlsson hasn't played more than 60 games as a Shark. That's the real bummer from a Sharks perspective. It's been four seasons, who would have thought that'd be the case?

Still don't understand why the winner/loser issue always comes up with trades. Seems to have worked out well for Ottawa so far with Norris and Stu. Sharks made it to the conference finals before the Blues headshotted them out of the series.

Keep in mind, COVID hits and the cap ceiling freezes. Not sure anyone was expecting that either.

Hertl isn’t playing on the wing, he’s their best center.

Meier-Hertl-Barabanov
Stutzle-Norris-Pavelski
Labanc-Couture-Dahlén
Nieto-Bonino-Balcers

Pavs would likely be on the team, and they wouldn’t still need Tierney either that center group.

You're absolutely right about contracts that were signed pre Covid. Some look like bad now as the cap was expecting be 90m this year and let's 93m in 22/23n

Exactly.

One last thing, if EK doesn't resign. Pavelski does. No way do the sharks have the 3rd pick. The real "loss" is Norris sure, but with Hertl and Couture at center, whose to say he'd beat them out for the spot?