Carlson takes centre stage in NHL after blistering start
Now 29 and seasoned, Caps D-man set team record with 23 points in October
Eight years ago, Washington Capitals defencemen John Carlson and Karl Alzner used to drive home from games together and laugh. Then one of the youngest defensive pairings in the NHL, Carlson and Alzner would go back and forth about “how cool the game was” that night, the big play that changed it or something memorable one of their more famous teammates did.
Their NHL careers mostly ahead of them, the confidants were “just living the dream.”
Alzner left the Capitals as a free agent in 2017, and Carlson is no longer the young, relaxed, talented defenceman playing a supporting role. At 29 and in his 11th NHL season, Carlson is an alternate captain mentoring a new crop of young defencemen, and he has blossomed into a star himself.
In October, he set a franchise record for points in a month by a defenceman with 23 (seven goals and 16 assists), and he was named the NHL’s first star of the month. He finished two points shy of the league record for a defenceman in October, set by Calgary’s Al MacInnis in 1990.
“Just seeing the transformation from always being a good defenceman to being top-five defenceman in the league, it is cool to see it all pay off because it’s been a journey,” Alzner said.
A crucial step in Carlson’s growth was being named one of the Capitals’ alternate captains at the start of this season. After years of learning from older defencemen who rolled through Washington, including Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen and Mike Green, Carlson is now securely at the helm.
As a newly minted leader, Carlson admitted, he can’t be as laidback as he was when he was younger. The past five years, those in the veteran defensive corps never felt a need to police one another; they all knew their roles and followed them accordingly. Now, a less experienced group looks to Carlson to set the standard, but don’t expect him to alter what got him there in the first place.
“I could be in the background, and now I can’t be in the background, if that makes any sense,” Carlson said before the season. “I’m not going to change who I am. I’m not going to be a drill sergeant now and stand at attention all the time, because that would be taking away from my game and, you know, who I am is how I play the game. I think that’s one of my assets.”
One of Carlson’s biggest areas of improvement as a leader has been helping younger defencemen progress, including Jonas Siegenthaler, with whom he was paired to start the season. Capitals coach Todd Reirden said he believes Carlson knows that with his experience and contract — he signed his eight-year, $64 million deal in the summer of 2018 — he needs to bring along younger players for the team to make another Stanley Cup run. That, Reirden said, is the “true understanding of a leader.”
Carlson has knocked down every task Reirden has put in front of him, with one big hole left on the checklist: winning the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenceman. To get Carlson prepared for this moment, Reirden nudged him to study leaders in other sports, such as Tom Brady and Stephen Curry.
“To cultivate leadership, it doesn’t just happen by accident,” Reirden said.
Last season, Carlson tallied 13 goals and 57 assists. During the team’s championship run in 2018, he had five goals and 15 assists after a regular season in which he recorded 15 goals and 53 assists. He has been in the Norris discussion over the past two years, finishing in the top five in voting both years but never among the top three.
But now that Carlson has started to rack up points, he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as an offensive defenceman.
“I just think it’s funny when people have these preconceived notions about certain people and, you know, like, ‘I’m an offensive defenceman,’ but I’ve played on the first penalty-killing unit for 10 years now,” Carlson said. “That’s not really how it works if you’re an offensive defenceman, right?”
With all the points Carlson has racked up to start the season, the national media is paying more attention. Alex Ovechkin is normally the centre of attention, but last week in Toronto, Carlson drew the most media members.
For Carlson, it was another step forward, out of the shadows and toward centre stage. As for the Norris Trophy conversation, Carlson refuses to promote himself and keeps his focus on leading his teammates as the Capitals’ top defenceman.
“I would love to win or be nominated, whatever they call it, but I don’t want to lose sleep over not,” Carlson said. “As long as, you know, my teammates come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I think you deserve this or that,’ that means more than actually it would mean to win it.”