When John Carlson left the ice late in the first period of Washington\u2019s Feb. 5 home game with the Nashville Predators, it probably didn\u2019t occur to anyone that he might be leaving the ice for the final time with a Caps sweater and the big No. 74 on it. But in the aftermath of the early Friday swap that sends Carlson to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for a conditional first-round draft choice and a third-round pick, that could be the case.<\/p>\n
The 17-year NHL veteran is in the final season of an eight-year contract extension he signed less than a month after Washington won the Stanley Cup in the spring of 2018. Carlson was a key component of that Cup championship team; he led all NHL defensemen in playoff scoring that spring with 20 points (five goals, 15 assists).<\/p>\n
Carlson is Washington\u2019s all-time leader in games played (1,143), goals (166), assists (605) and points (771) among defensemen, he is likely the greatest defenseman to play for the Caps and his career is virtually certain to result in his eventual enshrinement into the Hockey Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a virtual certainly that no one \u2013 aside from Carlson himself \u2013 will wear that No. 74 Washington sweater again.<\/p>\n
Drafted with the 27th overall pick in the first round of the 2008 NHL draft, Carlson spent half his life in the Washington organization before Friday\u2019s stunning wee hours swap. He has been the backbone and the fulcrum of the Washington defense corps for more than a decade and a half and a member of the organization for nearly 18 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cA really hard call, very emotional obviously for the team, for management, for John, and for his family,\u201d says Chris Patrick, Washington\u2019s senior vice president and general manager. \u201cBut with where we were \u2013 where we are \u2013 in the standings, and an opportunity to get some good assets for the future, it felt like the prudent thing to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere might ever be another player \u2013 another defenseman \u2013 like John Carlson, and that\u2019s not lost on us. He has been an ultimate professional, a massive part of the community, and obviously his on-ice product has been second to none. So, not a decision that we came by lightly, but something that we felt was \u2013 when you looked at it rationally \u2013 the right decision to make for our organization moving forward. And again, we just thank John for everything he did for the organization, and hope for the best for him in Anaheim.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Nic Dowd was dealt to Vegas yesterday, we noted in this space that it was the first time Washington traded a player it did not draft after eight or more years of service in more than a decade; it was that rare of a deal. The Carlson deal has far fewer comparables, and none in the 51-year history of the Washington organization.<\/p>\n
Prior to Carlson today, only three players in NHL history have been drafted by a team, played 17 or more seasons for that team, and then were traded away: Raymond Bourque in 2000, Brian Leetch in 2004 and Patrick Marleau in 2017.<\/p>\n
While his former Washington teammates hit the ice for a Friday morning practice session at MedStar Capitals Iceplex ahead of their afternoon flight to Boston, Carlson made his way to Anaheim where the Ducks are finishing up a nine-game homestand this weekend. After practice, Caps coach Spencer Carbery and several Caps talked about the star defenseman.<\/p>\n
Spencer Carbery<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother really difficult morning for the entire organization and our locker room right now. It\u2019s been difficult to digest and think about John moving on and just thinking about all the things he has accomplished inside this organization. And for me personally, coming here three years ago and him being such an established player, part of the leadership group, I\u2019m just so grateful for his relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came here and [him being] a veteran player and as a leader, [and me] as one of the youngest coaches in the League, that\u2019s one of the players that you\u2019re nervous about to coach. He made it so easy for me and was welcoming. He wanted to be pushed, [he] echoed whatever messaging\/culture components that I was trying to establish; he was right there. And I\u2019ll be forever grateful for John and our relationship and what he did for me, especially early on in my first few years as a head coach in the National Hockey League, which can be daunting at a young age, and at times was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look back and there\u2019s two moments I was thinking about at 2 am or when I woke up this morning. When I think back to my time here \u2013 and obviously the Stanley Cup and everything he accomplished [came before that] \u2013 but him being on the ice when [Ovechkin] broke the [NHL goals] record I thought was such an important [thing]. And for him to be able to embrace [Ovechkin], on the ice on Long Island that day, I will never forget that moment. I can still picture it in my mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the first year I was here, that year \u2013 as some of you may recall \u2013 was a tough year. We were grinding all year, and we moved some guys out at the deadline. And John Carlson, I believe, played the most minutes he had ever played in his career. He was basically playing 30 minutes a night trying to drag our team into the playoffs in a season where he could easily have just been like, \u2018I didn’t sign up for this.\u2019 He’s out there, power play, penalty kill, five on five. I can’t remember what he averaged in ice time, but I just distinctly remember us coming down the stretch, and this guy is putting everything he possibly can into somehow, some way, making one more defensive play or one more offensive play to drag us into the playoffs, and we get in by one point.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think that speaks to who John is and his character. And Anaheim, to give up the assets that they did to acquire them, they obviously see those same qualities.\u201d <\/p>\n
Caps captain Alex Ovechkin<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it\u2019s a sad day. It\u2019s probably the toughest day of my career, and I\u2019m talking about personal wise. It\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been together since his day one with the Caps. We\u2019ve grown up together as a person and our families. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard and it\u2019s a sad day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is obviously the best defenseman in this franchise\u2019s whole history. Obviously, an unbelievable man and a great friend for all of us. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s a hard day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Wilson<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough day. It\u2019s a lot to digest. It\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever known. It\u2019s hard on the team, it\u2019s hard on the individuals, it\u2019s hard on everything when you\u2019ve got a guy like that, that\u2019s been here forever. He\u2019s just a guy that so many people look to for so many things. There are certain guys in the locker room that are just kind of a north star, a little bit, where you just know they\u2019re going to try to lead you in the right direction and they\u2019re going to get it done on the ice and they\u2019re going to do all of the above. He is one of those guys, so it\u2019s a tough one to digest for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember him being one if the first guys that reaches out and makes you feel comfortable. I don\u2019t want to go on and on about me, but I think that\u2019s who Johnny was. He had a big impact on the individuals and the young guys in the whole organization. For me personally, he is a guy that you just want to impress, and you want to play well for, and you want to be a better hockey player, and you want to be a better leader around him. He has that passion and he has that hunger that doesn\u2019t grow on trees. He\u2019s a guy that there is a reason he has done what he has done. That being said, there have been so many leaders that have come through this room, and you put him in the top handful probably ever. And it\u2019s our job here now to make sure that what they brought to the culture and the team lives on. Everybody in this room is very proud to be a Capital, and Johhny emphasized that, that everybody show up and take pride in their game and who they are. It\u2019s on every single guy in this room to keep that in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are always changing. The thing about today for me is the human element of it. Tomorrow, we\u2019ll wake up and we\u2019ll play the Boston Bruins, and we\u2019ll try and get a win and hopefully take them down. But today is about family; it\u2019s [about] a brother. You wake up and I never foresaw a Capitals game without John Carlson in it. So it\u2019s really tough, and you think about the kids and the family. And Dowder [Thursday]; you go through a lot. People see the name go across the ticker and say, \u2018Oh, Carlson got traded.\u2019 Wow, that\u2019s crazy. Oh, Dowd got traded. Wow, that\u2019s crazy.\u2019 But they\u2019re moving their families across the country within an hour. And we signed up for that, but right now it\u2019s just about being together as a group and leaning on each other and depending on each other. We\u2019re not going anywhere \u2013 we\u2019ve got a good group in here \u2013 but right now, we\u2019re digesting a lot, and I might have some better answers for you in a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnny is a guy that anyone can call him in your family and he\u2019ll be there, he truly is. It\u2019s not always sunshine and rainbows, and he gives people a hard time in here sometimes. But I think everybody in here knows that if you call him at three in the morning, he is a guy that\u2019s lining up to be that guy for every single person. We see that in here, and that\u2019s what hurts. He is a guy that you just can\u2019t replace; I mean, you just don\u2019t. And that\u2019s a tough feeling. But like I said, we\u2019ll have some closure today, and tomorrow we\u2019ll wake up and try to go to war for the rest of the year and play hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that I hope the most is that in 10 years, we\u2019re sitting around a fire and having a cigar and a drink and talking about what an amazing ride it was. I\u2019ve seen his kids grow up, so it\u2019s tough. I remember Lucca when he was just [little]. When you put it that way, it\u2019s tough. But I think we\u2019ve got a bond that\u2019s going to be there for a long time, and I look forward to those future days.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dylan Strome<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a great day, obviously. What he has meant to this organization through 17 years, you don\u2019t replace a guy like that. It\u2019s tough; it\u2019s part of the business. He grew into one of my best friends \u2013 if not my best friend \u2013 on the team and obviously I think we\u2019re all going to miss him a lot. It\u2019s tough. You lose Dowder yesterday and lose John today and it\u2019s tough; it\u2019s a hit to the locker room for sure. We\u2019ve got a lot of good leaders in here and guys that have been around a long time, and guys that know how to manage those situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely going to miss him, and we wish him all the best of luck in Anaheim. He is a great person and an unbelievable family man. You learn a lot from a guy like that, so it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the type of person that, when he speaks, guys listen. And those are hard to come by. It\u2019s not an easy day for anyone. It\u2019s tough. We\u2019re definitely going to miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie Lindgren<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough. It\u2019s another tough loss for our team. I remember when I signed with Washington. and getting to play with guys like Ovi and Johnny and Tom, [T.J. Oshie] and [Nicklas Backstrom]. And now three of those five are gone. We all know how much John meant to the community and to the locker room here. He was kind of the locker room clown. He was the guy; it was always fun to see him every single day, and he was such a great leader for our team. He was a vocal leader and a lead by example kind of guy. And it’s tough. It’s tough to lose a good friend again. It’s not easy. He is going to go to Anaheim, and you know he’s certainly going to make that a better hockey team.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a team, we had a pretty good heart-to-heart [conversation] today. Obviously losing two very big-time players and leaders for this team in Dowder and Johnny, I think it was good for us to sit together and all of us look around the locker room and say, \u2018Hey, we\u2019ve still got a pretty good hockey team in here. Our goals are still in front of us, and under no circumstances are we going to pout the rest of the way through the season. We\u2019re going to fight and battle and do everything we possibly can to get into the playoffs here.\u2019 [Saturday\u2019s] tilt is going to be massive for our team, and we know that. So it\u2019s a good opportunity [Saturday]. It\u2019s an emotional day today. So take today, and tomorrow we\u2019ve got to be professionals and go and compete as hard as we can, because that\u2019s what Johnny and Dowder would have wanted us to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Carlson\u2019s Ducks and Dowd\u2019s Golden Knights battle it out for Pacific Division supremacy and to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Caps will do the same back east over the season\u2019s final six weeks. The odds are stacked against them, but that was the case two years ago too, when the Caps moved out defenseman Joel Edmundson and winger Anthony Mantha for a pair of picks each.<\/p>\n
When those deals were made two years ago, the Caps looked like a team that was playing out the string, and one which had little hope of climbing its way into a playoff berth. But those plucky 2023-24 Capitals \u2013 with many of those players still on the current roster \u2013 defied the odds and snuck their way into the postseason. They were swept aside in four games by the New York Rangers, who haven\u2019t seen the playoffs since then.<\/p>\n
This season\u2019s Caps squad is still full of belief in its ability to pull off another miracle, even though they won\u2019t have John Carlson and the remarkable 26:19 he averaged nightly \u2013 the top figure in the entire League for all skaters over that span \u2013 as a 34-year-old over the final 33 games of that \u201923-24 season.<\/p>\n
Patrick did add right-handed defenseman Timothy Liljegren (from San Jose for a fourth-round pick) and center David Kampf (from Vancouver for a sixth-round pick) on Friday after making the Carlson deal, so both departing Capitals were replaced with NHL-caliber players that can hopefully help the Caps in their quest to defy the odds and make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought in some guys today to help give us some NHL quality players to help in that push,\u201d says Patrick. \u201cI’m hoping our guys are ready to buck up and basically play every night like it’s a playoff game, and to try to get ourselves into position here we compete for a playoff spot. I do think they can do it. We’re finally healthy we finally have our group of 12 forwards that we planned to have, and our [defense] that we planned to have, and I think they need to get out there and be ready to rock.<\/p>\n
“And some of the comments I’ve seen from some of the guys are that’s their attitude, which I think is awesome. And I think it starts [Saturday in Boston]. Big game [Saturday]. We’re chasing them in the standings, and I think we can really get this last stretch of games started positively with a good showing [Saturday].\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick is right about that part. Going through the room and talking to players right now, there is plenty of disappointment, anger, frustration and sadness. A lot of emotion. And sometimes, the best thing to do with emotion is to channel it in a positive direction, which is what the Caps have in mind. The team held a meeting ahead of Friday\u2019s practice session, and there is also a fair amount of defiance within those walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely disappointing,\u201d says Caps forward Connor McMichael. \u201cBut I think there\u2019s two ways to look at it. You can roll over and give up, but that isn\u2019t the group we have in here. We\u2019re going to use it as motivation to prove that we shouldn\u2019t have sold or gotten rid of guys, whatever term you want to use. We are determined to get into the playoffs and prove people wrong; we talked about it this morning. What are people going to say when we rattle off six wins in a row and find a way to get in? It\u2019s going to be something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOvi comes in this morning and he is our captain,\u201d says Wilson. \u201cAnd right from him down to the young guys, everybody\u2019s got a role and everybody\u2019s got a different style of leadership. And It\u2019s on the whole group to understand that today sucks. It\u2019s brutal. I\u2019m sure there are some guys that want to cry; that\u2019s the reality of it. Today you can cry, and tomorrow you\u2019ve got to be a big boy and wake up and go play hockey. We\u2019re professionals, and we\u2019ve got to do our job, and we\u2019re not going to roll over. And obviously, the trade deadline is not over, but we believe in this group. I still look at our roster, and I think we\u2019re a better team than a lot of teams in the East.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of us always figured that John Carlson would retire as a Washington Capital, and it\u2019s definitely sad that won\u2019t be the case, after nearly 18 full years in the organization. But he will be a free agent on July 1, and he will be able to sign with any team in the League, including the Capitals.<\/p>\n
Regardless of where Carlson ends his career, he is still performing at an extremely high level, he is still capable of munching a lot of minutes nightly, and he can probably play another three, four or five years if he chooses to do so.<\/p>\n
His teammates will miss him dearly, as you can tell. So too will those of us who\u2019ve known him since he was 18 and had the rare and exquisite privilege of watching him blossom from a teenager to one of the best defensemen in the NHL, the best defenseman to grace the ice in Washington, a locker room leader and a guy who was always forthcoming with his hockey insights and knowledge, and one who helped us improve our own grasp of what goes on down on the ice in the greatest of all games.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see John Carlson in the Hockey Hall of Fame a few years after he decides to hang up his skates for the final time. Until then, all the best to John and his family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When John Carlson left the ice late in the first period of Washington\u2019s Feb. 5 home game with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-208253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}