NHL reporter suggests shocking Karlsson trade rumor!

Last week, 2019 pending free agents defensemen Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings and Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators sent shockwaves throughout the National Hockey League when they started talking about contract extensions and how they would be willing to change teams to get the money they are worth. 

Following their statement, that surely worried fans in L.A. and in Ottawa, the Athletic's Frank Provenzano suggests that now is in fact the time for Sens general manager Pierre Dorion to trade Karlsson. 

The former Dallas Stars assistant GM believes that the Sens could build a better future if they moved their captain and star defenseman. 

"Their current slump and spot outside of the playoff picture might be less a function of underperformance and more a regression to their true competitive mean," Provenzano writes.

"If that is, in fact, the case (and I would argue it is), then it’s critical that Ottawa doesn’t compound the problem by locking themselves into a legacy contract that carries huge performance-to-value risks."

While Doughty and Karlsson have begun negotiating their new contract on the public front, the Senators might look at the possibility of moving their captain to build a better future (this has been hard to write, but Provenzano thinks so.)

"It is undisputed that Karlsson is a dominant NHL player. He will also be 29 years old in the summer of 2019, and will almost certainly command a maximum-term deal in the open market, which likely translates into an eight-year deal with the Senators. He has also seen his play dip in this young 2017-18 season as he returns from off-season ankle surgery. Is this dip a blip in what is otherwise a truly outstanding body of NHL work, or has peak-Karlsson already been realized?"

The Sens and their star player still have lots of time to consider the next move to do when it comes to a contract extension, but this new option will certainly get the fans talking...