Erik Karlsson appears to insult Ottawa; former teammate comes to his defence

Obviously, the San Jose Sharks are nowhere near the team they thought they'd be when they made Erik Karlsson the highest paid defenceman in the NHL back in 2019. After a terrible 2019-20, the Sharks remain a below .500 team this year and will struggle to make the playoffs. Recently, San Jose GM Doug Wilson said the Sharks are going through a "reset", in which he believes taking a step back may be necessary before the franchise can get back into contention after years near the top of the standings. When asked to comment on that, Karlsson took what many thought was a shot at his former team, the Ottawa Senators.

"After the year that we had last year, I think it was pretty clear that we were not going to be the team that we were maybe the first year that I got here. That doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out,» Karlsson said.

"Obviously, I did not sign here to go through a rebuild, go through what I did for 10 years in Ottawa."

"We need to find a way to build with the core that we have," he added.

"I do think we have a good group of guys here."

While many took this as Karlsson slagging his former team, a past teammate came to his defence.

"I'll save everybody the trouble of finding reasons to be offended by this," said Marc Methot. "Sometimes in interviews stuff just comes out the wrong way. It takes one comment to catch like wildfire. Nothing to see here. He loves Ottawa. Lives here in offseason. Move on."

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