John Carlson is currently playing in the final season of the eight-year, $64 million contract he signed with the Washington Capitals in 2018. The 36-year-old defender has spent his entire career with the Caps, and it doesn\u2019t appear like that\u2019s going to change heading into next year.<\/p>\n
Caps general manager Chris Patrick met with the media on Friday to discuss a variety of topics, including Carlson\u2019s future with the club. After Carlson revealed in September<\/a> that he had not yet had contract extension talks with the team, Patrick updated that those discussions have now begun.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, we\u2019ve talked, and I\u2019ve talked with his agent as well,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to have conversations here.\u201d<\/p>\n The news comes after Carlson recently cleared up any talk of him retiring after the 2025-26 campaign, telling Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman that there was \u201cno chance\u201d of that occurring<\/a>. Carlson is still an effective and productive NHL defenseman, again leading the Capitals in scoring from the backend with 38 points (9g, 29a) in 45 games.<\/p>\n With Carlson on the ice at five-on-five this season, the Capitals have seen 53.8 percent of shot attempts, 51.7 percent of expected goals, 51.5 percent of scoring chances, and 50.7 percent of high-danger chances. His overall role with the team has slightly diminished, particularly with Jakob Chychrun taking over his first power-play unit responsibilities. Carlson is skating 41 seconds less of average ice time per game this season (22:53) compared to last (23:34).<\/p>\n Carlson is also an essential part of the club\u2019s leadership group, this year serving as an alternate captain for a seventh season.<\/p>\n Additionally, he is the Capitals\u2019 all-time leader among defensemen in games played (1,133), goals (165), assists (598), and points (763). He recently passed franchise legend Nicklas Backstrom for second on the Caps\u2019 all-time games list<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to @AFPAnalytics<\/a>, a Carlson extension is expected to cost approximately $6.9 million for three years. Per PuckPedia<\/a>, the Capitals are currently projected to have $35.6 million in cap space next offseason.<\/p>\n The Capitals have heavily invested in their defense in recent seasons, inking Chychrun, Matt Roy, Rasmus Sandin, and Martin Fehervary to long-term deals that keep each player signed through at least the 2028-29 campaign. The club also has promising prospects on the backend, like Cole Hutson, Ryan Chesley, Leon Muggli, David Gucciardi, and Cam Allen.<\/p>\n Carlson and the Capitals will have until July 1 to come to an agreement before the veteran blueliner hits unrestricted free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Carlson is currently playing in the final season of the eight-year, $64 million contract he signed with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-415726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}