The 2019 offseason promises to be one of the most action-packed in recent memory and a few teams have already gotten things kicked off. Aside from the Islanders inking Jordan Eberle to a long-term deal, the headlines so far have been dominated by defensemen.

The first move after the Stanley Cup Finals was the Flyers and Capitals swap of right-shot defensemen, with Radko Gudas ending up in Washington and Matt Niskanen heading to Philadelphia. This move could prove to be inconsequential for both clubs as the two blueliners are the same player in many respects, aside from Gudas’ character issues (yes i’m calling his past on-ice behavior character issues, just like white guys like to say certain NFL players have “character issues”). They’re nearly identical in size, have had similar production, and will be joining the third NHL team of their respective careers. The aspects where they diverge, and ultimately what tips this trade in Washington’s favor, are their ages and contracts.

Though they have comparable profiles, Gudas is the guy you’d much rather have. He’s three years younger than Niskanen and has a smaller cap hit. What’s more is Gudas has one year left on his deal, while Niskanen has two. This trade gives the Capitals a lot of flexibility. Let’s say Gudas acts a fool on the ice this season or just has a down year, the Capitals can easily move on. If things go well, he can be brought back and, boom, they have a younger, probably cheaper version of Niskanen nailed down. The Flyers better hope Niskanen works out, because if he doesn’t they’re on the hook for $5.75 million for an additional year when he’s 34. On top of this big (kinda asinine) gamble the Flyers are taking, they retained 30 percent of Gudas’ salary in this trade. So they may have potentially gifted a division rival with a better player and immediate cap room to go out and add another piece. As a Devils fan, I really just hate to see this.

The second defenseman trade involved The Other Pennsylvania Team. The Penguins shipped Olli Maata to the Blackhawks for forward Dominic Kahun and a 5th round draft pick. It’s always hilarious to me when late round draft picks get shoehorned into trades like this. This could have been a clean one for one swap, instead a nearly-worthless draft pick is randomly thrown into the mix. Or maybe I shouldn’t be so dismissive considering the piece the Penguins are picking up here was a former undrafted player in Kahun, who did have a very solid rookie season in 2019. Anyway, the Pens had been thinking about moving a defenseman for a while (remember the proposed trade that would have sent Jack Johnson and Phil Kessel to Minnesota?). Instead of doing a dumb thing and trading their third best player (Kessel) just to get off a bad contract (Johnson), they make a pretty decent move here.

Maata was a first-round pick for Pittsburgh in 2012 and developed into an important cog of their back-to-back title teams in 2016 and 2017. I always love when teams have success on the backs of their homegrown talent (even clubs I hate like the Penguins), so it is a bit sad to see Maata go. However, it’s the right move: the Pens needed to clear salary and Maata is coming off an injury-plagued season. They now get a solid young forward still on his entry-level deal who may now have the great fortune of playing with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin (maybe even some shifts with both).

From Chicago’s standpoint this was a move that had to happen. Their defense wasn’t just awful last season, it was old too. They relied on Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith for heavy minutes like it was 2013. There was already a high chance their back-end would get younger anyway, with the likely promotion of 2017 first-round pick Henri Jokiharju to the NHL level next year. So if the 24-year-old Maata can bounce back, the Blackhawks could be looking at a nice injection of youth to their blueline in 2020. The main downside here is Maata isn’t cheap at a $4.1 million cap hit for the next two seasons. So if Maata flames out in the Windy City, his deal could add to an already pricey, underperforming defensive corps.

Finally this brings us to the biggest news of the offseason thus far. Erik Karlsson has re-signed with the San Jose Sharks on what in NBA parlance would be called a “max deal”. The mammoth deal is right in line with the 8-year, $88 million deal Drew Doughty signed with Los Angeles last year. I, like many observers, thought Karlsson was as good as gone from the Bay Area, after he thanked the Sharks organization on Twitter and reports came that he wanted to play in the East because his family missed the Ottawa area. The only thing that can cure homesickness better than actually going home is $88 million, so i ain’t mad at this man at all for reconsidering.

As strange as it feels for a player of Karlsson’s caliber, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have received this type of money on the open market. I wouldn’t call him “injury-prone” per se, because he played all 82 games three years in a row from 2014-2016 (with an additional season of 81 games in 2012), but he’s accumulated some pretty serious injuries over the course of his career. So it’s possible a lot of teams may have been leery of giving big-time money to a guy who may only suit up for 65 games per season going forward. Additionally, he almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten this type of money if he had ended up in Tampa, the destination many had pegged as his preferred landing spot, because of their impending salary cap crunch. On the other hand, Karlsson would have been unquestionably the best defenseman since Ryan Suter to hit the open market (and honestly, probably the best since Zdeno Chara in 2006) so teams with money to blow like the Rangers, Canucks, and Devils might have still opened their wallets for him.

The Erik Karlsson saga was a fascinating one that unfortunately has an anti-climatic ending for those of us who are fans of chaos. Now that he’s gone the route John Carlson did last season and re-upped before free agency, teams that thought they’d be in on this generational talent are now left scrambling for a plan B.