from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Erik Karlsson’s time as an Ottawa Senator has gradually yet suddenly expired sooner than he ever wished it to.

So, he’s buying a little more.

A cluster of credentialed messengers are gathered in the club’s press room. Some have been hanging around the Canadian Tire Centre for more than eight hours waiting for Ottawa’s most dynamic hockey player to appear at camp and speak his mind.

They can wait a few extra minutes for his heart.

Karlsson — now devastatingly, dangerously a San Jose Shark — is making his way around the bowels of a rink he wowed for nine seasons with those sky-high saucer passes that grazed the Jumbotron and a skating stride that blew his hair like a poem, on half an ankle you’d swear was a full and on an Achilles he’d make you forget was once hanging by a thread.

Two floors removed from the cameras, the man they affectionately call “Karl” wants a moment to dish out hugs to employees, to friends, those who watched all those thrilling highs and crushing lows of arguably the franchise’s greatest pure talent. A gift whose unceremonious departure is being cursed.

“I wanted to say goodbye to everyone first,” says Karlsson. “I don’t think I’d ever in my wildest imagination thought I’d leave this place.”

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