Kovacevic: The Karlsson trade's worthwhile for the best reason of all

MILWAUKEE -- Was the Erik Karlsson trade, for all its intrinsic marquee value, truly worthwhile for the Penguins?

Man, as I see it, there isn't a discussion to be had on this, much less a debate. 

Here's my 1,000-word column on the subject in the span of one spectacular photograph:

Hey, thanks for reading, everyone!

No, seriously, this isn't some mammoth, multi-layered subject. It doesn't require analytics, advanced or otherwise. It doesn't require a degree in cap-ology. And it sure doesn't require breaking down what's made Karlsson the most dynamic defenseman of this NHL generation. Things haven't been complicated in the Pittsburgh hockey world for the nearly two decades our city's been blessed by the hockey gods with two of the sport's top 10 all-time talents, and it'll never be that for as long as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin keep lacing 'em up. 

Nor should it be. The odds of such lightning double-striking twice for this franchise -- wait, OK, three times, considering these two were the sequel to Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr -- are beyond unimaginable. We might never see their likes again. Not individually, certainly not as a concurrent duo. And that also applies to their respective 2022-23 performances, in which they kept producing at a point-a-game pace into their mid-30s while not sitting out once. No one knows when that'll wane.

This is it. This is the time. This is the focus. This is what's fair to both Sid and Geno, as well as to Kris Letang, for the three championships they've already won together. And atop that, I'd say, this is what's for-real the most plausible path toward winning another for the foreseeable future, since legitimately generational players are a far rarer occurrence than any of us has the right to think, and capitalizing on their continued presence -- and, ideally, excellence -- should be considered common sense.

Just as it should've been considered common sense that seismic change would be needed after the Sid/Geno output still wasn't enough to make the Stanley Cup playoffs this past spring.

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Let's tap a couple sticks here ...

The ownership guys at Fenway Sports Group showed me more than I'd been expecting, which turned out to not be a reflection on them but, rather, of their understated approach. John Henry, Tom Werner and principally Dave Beeston wound up with precisely the right read on the combined ineptitude of Ron Hextall and Brian Burke, as well as a presciently early read on Mike Sullivan in having handed the head coach the lone long-term extension. To boot, they then threw their weight into every corner of the league's executive ranks to emerge with Kyle Dubas.

There's ponying up for payroll, and there's showing genuine leadership aimed at winning. They've done both, but the latter always impresses more.

It's Dubas, understandably, who'll be reading, seeing and hearing all the praise. And that's cool, if only for however many doctorate degrees must've gone into a transaction of this scale:

My God. I'm sure that this isn't the most important trade in team history -- not when the two Craig Patrick blockbusters in 1991 and 1992 contributed colossally to back-to-back Cups -- and it might not end up the most imbalanced, either.

But wow. Dubas might as well have just named himself GM, Mayor, Governor and Grand Poobah of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes.

Which is to say, not only did he emerge with the reigning Norris Trophy winner and $700,000 in leftover cap space, but he also shipped away almost all of Hextall's many mistakes while not giving up a single player who'll be missed. (And that's coming from maybe the only observer anywhere who kinda liked Jan Rutta's game.) Casey DeSmith was a dud. Jeff Petry disappointed. Mikael Granlund's outright done. And even the lone prospect, Nathan Legaré, was a regular scratch this past winter in Wilkes-Barre.

And did I mention actual cap space?

It's staggering in both scope and smarts.

Now, look, it's never fun to forfeit a first-round draft pick. But in the same breath, I can say that it couldn't be clearer that Dubas would've had to part with at least one vital piece from his roster to make all the rest work. And he didn't. Which is only everything when it comes to contending.

Again, remember the focus.

Heck, go right ahead and strip away everything else from the trade, reduce it to just Karlsson for a first-round pick, and it's still pretty. Because of the focus.

It's been a bit more than two months since Dubas' June 1 hiring, at which time he pledged that he'd work toward another Cup run with Sid, Geno, et al, and he did so by identifying -- publicly, no less -- three critical areas:

• Goaltending
• Gritty/defending bottom-six forwards
• Scoring/mobility on defense

We can squabble all summer about the merits of the Tristan Jarry extension, and I'll bet it'd drag into next summer, too. But Dubas did his diligence, up to and including flying to Edmonton, Alberta, to meet with Jarry and family before pen was put to paper. He liked what he heard, both from Jarry and Sullivan, he did his own research, and he reached a respectable conclusion. But then, he also rounded up, like, a half-dozen other goaltenders to ensure he'll have plenty of parachutes to pull.

The bottom-six forwards could never fall into the fan-favorite category of free-agent signings, but Lars Eller's a heads-up third-line center I've loved forever, and I'll take Matt Nieto, Noel Acciari and now even the new acquisition Rem Pitlick over what was stealing oxygen here this past season.

And the defense ... yeah.

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Go big or go home, right?

Listen, I'm neither naive nor hopeful enough to forecast greatness for a team that was just eliminated on home ice by the Rockford IceHogs. Those Penguins had significant issues that spanned the entire season and, in a few cases, haven't been addressed at all. At least not yet.

For example: Jake Guentzel, only the team's perennial top goal-scorer, didn't show his best form or skating stride after the opening month of the schedule even while still ringing up 36. Now, he'll be shelved for maybe a month of the coming regular season because of right ankle surgery over the weekend. No one can know the extent to which that'll affect -- or help, for that matter -- and that's a massive variable, with no simple solution in sight.

There's also Jarry. And the scoring shallowness up front. And the inability/unwillingness to match the preferred tempo of Sullivan's system. And Sullivan's own inability/unwillingness to adjust any number of coaching preferences. And, as ever, there's that damned power play.

Karlsson can't fix even a fraction of that. If he could, his 101 points and nightly brilliance, as compiled here by Canada's Sportsnet ... 

... would've helped the Sharks avoid losing 60 of their 82 games.

But he'll be a superb fit. And can bring about specific upgrades, possibly sizable ones, in the Penguins' breakouts, in their flow through the neutral zone, in his uncanny way of shooting pucks through traffic and onto the net or a teammates' blade, in their distribution of passes into the slot -- he was No. 1 in the league at that last season -- and yeah, of course, that damned power play.

And he can do all of that right now. When it's still very much worthwhile.