Season 16 could be the last hurrah for dozens of the best players the EURO League has ever seen. The first-ever, first-round draft picks are in their late 30s now and their value keeps falling and falling. It won’t be long before great careers end and we will be able to truly see what the career gold standards will be from now on.

All-time scoring leader John Tavares is special. He will likely reach the 1,500-point plateau this season with some team. He is a free agent with an 85 OV rating, and it looks like he has 3 or more seasons left in him.

Defensemen Erik Karlsson (left) and Alex Pietrangelo in a race for the all-time scoring lead among defensemen.

Among defensemen, 19 of the top 20 all-time scorers are still playing. Only Shea Weber (933 games played) has retired. He was the first defenseman drafted when he went 8th overall to Oslo. He is now 41 years old. He moved a lot in his career (10 different cities) and he used that experience to land a job in Steve Yung’s Paris organization, as the man in charge of travel arrangements for team trips.

Erik Karlsson, 36, was taken the pick after Weber and he is an unrestricted 80 OV free agent. He is also second all-time in scoring among defensemen.

At the very top of that list is Alex Pietrangelo, the third defenseman ever drafted in the EURO. He also a 36-year-old unrestricted free agent (83 OV). In fact, all but one of the top 7 all-time scoring defensemen are currently looking for new contracts. Tyler Myers, who is 5th all-time, has a year remaining on his contract with Athens.

Pietrangelo has had the best career of all of them to this point. He has four Best Defenseman trophies, one league MVP award, and he is the top scoring defenseman in franchise history for both Paris and Belfast. But there is a chance he might not finish as the highest-scoring EURO defenseman. Karlsson is right on his heels, just 5 points back. Karlsson has scored one more goal than Pietrangelo has.

Karlsson and Pietrangelo have always been loosely linked together in this league. They both came in as flashy offensive-minded blue liners and their point totals were always close to each other’s and almost always near the top of the scoring list.

Karlsson has been super popular and highly regarded. Come All-Star Game time, he has always drawn the brightest spotlight. He was elected to 11 all-star teams and is the undisputed king of the Skills Competition’s Most Accurate Shooter contest, winning it 6 times and placing in the top 3 three other years. Pietrangelo made it to the All-Star Game 8 times.

And to cement the inevitable comparisons a little more, Pietrangelo and Karlsson were traded for each other as the main pieces in a Season 10 deal between Paris and Belfast.