John Carlson has the Washington Capitals in a tough position.
He's a 28 year old pending unrestricted free-agent who is currently leading the NHL in points by a defenseman, with 61. He is also 2nd in goals with 15, and 3rd in 5v5 scoring.
Carlson also happens to currently have one of the best value-contracts in the NHL, in the last year of a six year deal that paid him under $4 million.
Carlson's season comes at both a good and a bad time. On the one hand, the Capitals lost a ton of quality players last summer, and so they desperately needed Carlson to have a good year. But on the other, had they not so thoroughly botched last summer's roster shuffle, then they would have been in a much better position today.
Just for example, with the team up against the cap and the expansion draft looming, knowing full well that Carlson was a pending UFA, they let Nate Schmidt go to Vegas. A better move would have been to move Carlson, who have brought back some excellent trade value, protect Schmidt, and stay younger while having more cap flexibility.
Instead, they kept Carlson and now he's priced himself out of any chance of signing a contract that will actually help a team, so the Capitals either have to sign him to a terrible deal or let him walk for nothing.
Both options suck.
Good think they re-signed the bumbling MacLellan to a contract extension!
While the 61 points are nice, they're an outlier. Carlson teased a season like this four years ago, then dropped off significantly for the next two. Betting on him to be a 50+ points defenseman going forward is a foolish move.
Furthermore, he's not that great. The points are nice, don't get me wrong. But he's a negative in the following differentials: shot-attempts, shots, scoring chances. And he's a -5 on the year.
So despite scoring 61 points, it's not even clear Carlson helps the team. When he plays, the Capitals allow more shots-attempts, scoring chances, shots and goals. Not sure how it is even possible he helped the team, actually - he seems like a negative across the board, despite the gaudy point totals.
Furthermore, while he is the 3rd in the NHL (D) in 5v5 points, it's because he has racked up a ton of secondary assists. Carlson has only 6 primary assists, whereas Karlsson has 17, even though he only leads JC by three points.
Carlson has nine 5v5 goals, which is sweet, but he's also got a high shooting percentage for a defenseman, while Carlson is shooting 6.67% at 5v5, pretty much all of the other guys with similar point totals have significantly lower shooting percentages and more 1st assists.
The deeper you look into his stats, the worse they are. He's is 2nd in power play scoring, but also 2nd in power-play ice-time.
Basically, because he is going to finish somewhere near 70 points, John Carlson is going to get paid a ton of money this offseason. The problem, however, is that he's only a half-way decent secondary defenseman and not some kind of superstar.
The team that pays him the big money will regret it. They will be paying for flash, and not substance. To but it in perspective, in his career year, Carlson has scored the same as Jake Gardiner at 5v5 (but with less primary assists and a higher shooting percentage), less than Morgan Rielly on the power-play (p/60) while playing significantly worse defense than either of them.
Is this a guy you want to pay $7 per season into his thirties?
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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