Heading into the season, the Capitals weren’t planning on holding extension talks right away with their longest-tenured blueliner, John Carlson. The thought was that both sides would see how things go at the start and reassess from there.
It appears those assessments have been completed. Speaking at Friday’s press conference (video link), GM Chris Patrick indicated that he has had some discussions with Carlson and his agent about the possibility of sticking around beyond this season and that those talks will continue.
The 36-year-old has spent his entire 17-year NHL career with Washington, who drafted him 27th overall back in 2008. In his prime, he reached the 70-point mark three times, topped by a 75-point effort in 2019-20 that saw him finish as the runner-up in Norris Trophy voting. While his eight-year, $64MM contract looked expensive at the time, it’s fair to say that it has aged rather well for the Caps.
In recent years, his offensive numbers have dipped a bit but he still entered this season coming off back-to-back years of more than 50 points. Still, with Jakob Chychrun beginning the first season of his eight-year, $72MM pact, it felt like the torch was being passed and that Chychrun would take over from Carlson as the undisputed top defender.
That hasn’t entirely happened, however. While Chychrun already has 15 goals (second-most among NHL rearguards), Carlson is actually three points ahead of him with 36. Meanwhile, Carlson is still second on the team in playing time at just under 23 minutes a night and still plays a key role on both special teams units. He may not be the player he was in his prime but he’s showing that he’s still an impactful defender.
But given his age, it’s fair to wonder how much longer that will be the case. Carlson has a lot of mileage under his belt (1,269 NHL games between the regular season and playoffs with heavy usage) and it’s unlikely he will sustain playing at a top-pairing level well into his next deal. Accordingly, even with a rising cap and a rather thin list of pending unrestricted free agent defensemen, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Patrick trying to get Carlson to sign below his current price tag. This is one of those situations where adding years could get the AAV to a more reasonable amount but would also carry more risk toward the back end of the deal.
The Capitals have ample cap space heading into next summer with $36.5MM in projected room, per PuckPedia. A big chunk of that comes from Carlson and Alex Ovechkin’s expiring deals so there’s a path for Patrick to reshape his core or keep it together. While Ovechkin isn’t ready to decide on his future yet, it appears Patrick intends to keep his veteran group intact with these efforts to get Carlson extended.