One of the (lone) bright spots for the Jackets this season has been the emergence of William Karlsson. He’s been relied on heavily by head coach John Tortorella who praises his hockey IQ. With Karlsson playing so well, people have questioned if he’s better than the teams other young Swedish centre Alexander Wennberg. I have even seen people question whether Wennberg is expendable now because of the play of Karlsson.
With Wennberg's strong play of late this talk has died down, but I'm sure some people still have the same opinion. I thought it would be a good idea to compare the two player’s career to date to see who is having the better season and who we can expect to have the brighter future.
We will start by looking at the players as amateurs. Both players were born in Sweden and came up through the same system, albeit Karlsson a little earlier due to his age, making this comparison quite simple.
Let’s have a little fun with this. Here are both players’ stats through ages 17-19. Take a guess at which player is which.
Ages 17-19
Player A was Wennberg and Player B was Karlsson.
Wennberg and Karlsson are only a year apart in age but because of Wennberg’s late birthday (Sept 22) they are two draft years apart. So these numbers include Karlsson’s draft season and the two seasons after. For Wennberg it includes his draft season, the one prior and one afterwards. Karlsson as a January birthday has an eight month difference on Wennberg so he would have been further developed which partially explains the difference in points.
Let’s now turn to their time as professionals. It’s quite clear that as professionals Wennberg has been the better offensive player. Over two seasons he has 30 points versus just 10 for Karlsson. With that being said Karlsson is better defensively, particularly on the penalty kill. Karlsson allows fewer scoring chances against than Wennberg. Karlsson also receives over two minutes a game on the PK, most on the Jackets. A testament to how much John Tortorella trusts him. For the sake of argument let’s say Wennberg’s offensive game is equal to Karlsson’s defensive game.
To get a better feel for the two players we are going to look at how they have impacted their teammates at 5 on 5. To keep the comparison fair I want to look at players both Wennberg and Karlsson have played with. Just this season is going to be looked at, as this avoid any effects from the tire fire of last season and avoids any data from Karlsson’s time in Anaheim.
Since Wennberg has played fewer games I looked for the players he spent the most time with that Karlsson also spent significant time with. I found five common players; Scott Hartnell, Jack Johnson, David Savard, Ryan Murray and Nick Foligno.
From there I looked at their Corsi% with or without you stats to see how each player performed with and without the two centres.
Taking this into account combined with his superior offensive game I think Wennberg is the better player. Now that does not mean that Karlsson is expendable. He brings a very unique skill set to the table. Not just anyone can handle the defensive minutes he does. Plus from his time in Sweden he has room to grow offensively.
As for projecting the two players, Wennberg has the potential to be a great number two centre behind Ryan Johansen. Karlsson projects into a solid two way centre that chips in offensively and is an asset on the penalty kill. He very well could end up as a Brandon Dubinsky lite.
Both players have bright futures and combined with Johansen and Dubinsky give the Jackets a great core of centres for years to come. You can follow me on Twitter @PaulBerthelot