Karlsson's EoS Recap
Nicklas Karlsson's rookie season ended early as the Bears finished short of a playoff spot. Karlsson and the Bears had started off the season strong but faltered about a quarter of the way through the season and the young team didn't manage to recover to win consistently and in a tough conference even a .500 record of 33-33-6 left them more than 10 points out of the final playoff spot. The second round pick in the S41 draft had a successful rookie season for the Seattle Bears after spending two seasons developing in the VHLM.
Throughout 72 games the rookie offensive defenceman tallied 51 points (12G, 39A) with 13 power play points (6G 7A) in his VHL inaugural season. Karlsson's 51 points places him 4th among scoring in Seattle and as the highest scoring rookie amongst the Bear's 4 rookies. It won't be enough to garner him much attention in the Christian Stolzschweiger Trophy race as he finished just 6th in rookie scoring league-wide.
Aside from his offensive numbers, Karlsson had a surprisingly good season defensively as he finished the season leading his team in +/- with a +9 rating. He was one of 4 plus players on the Bears with fellow rookie AC Savage right behind him with a +8 rating. His 142 shots blocked was the second most on Seattle behind the Seattle star defenceman Villeneuve who was primarily Karlsson's defensive partner on Seattle's top pairing.
When asked to comment about his thoughts on the season Karlsson had this to say: