I just don't see there being enough positives here for San Jose to do this, especially with how dominant Karlsson has been

Yeah but he's got 5yrs left on a contract that was until 1/4 of this season regarded as completely untradeable - Firkus is a good prospect and 3 picks for a rebuilding team are great. And what's the point of having an elite defenseman for maybe all of this year and maybe next year on this particular team... makes no sense. The sharks would be better off trading him this season before they once again are 'stuck' with an untradeable contract at 11.5 M for 3-4 years.

I think a first would be necessary to acquire a norris caliber defenseman, + with the cap starting to rise again the contract is going to look better and better. It is also reasonable to assume on a better team Karlsson would be even better than on a team with 3 real forwards. Add in the fact that donskoi & dreiger are basically cap dumps and a first would be a minimum. Firkus is a real nice prospect tho

Yeah this isn’t it for reasons already stated in this thread. Retention, plus two cap dumps and the fact your getting the Norris leader for basically nothing