John Carlson: The Case for Keeping Him in DC for Good

first off: excellent effort. the stats are definitely eye openers. maybe add a poll to this one?

to me, no statistical advantage would be enough to lose a year of john carlson’s restricted free agency. bring him up for the playoffs and give him a chance then, if he’s indeed a clear improvement over shaMo/juice/erskine. but just “for a chance to improve the team this year,” i don’t think the benefits match the cost. going for the cup this year and building intelligently for the future shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

My first thought was that during the 9 games he’s played this season he had a favorable schedule, which would skew his numbers. For those 9 games we only had 5 wins, and outscored the opponents 34-25, which is slightly under our pace for the whole year.

There is definitely a huge sample size issue, but he definitely didn’t get the cupcake matchups.

I love him getting the experience, but I’m just not sure its worth giving away an FA year. If he was bringing outstanding defensive presence maybe, as that is the one area this team is really lacking.

All in, baby. Keep Carlson up.

I’m a bit torn on the matter, but my gut tells me he should be in DC for the rest of the season, for a few reasons.

1) The kid can play. He’s talented to the point where he deserves to play in the NHL, and he looks better every game. If a young player with his skill set was on the trading block on Wednesday, we (and many other teams) would have tried to get him, and we would have been willing to pay some serious coin for him.

2) If we’re going to have him on the roster for playoffs, I’d rather he have 25 games under his belt than 9. That would give BB time to feel out which defensive pairings work best, and let JC get comfortable with his defensive partner. I’d rather get the kinks and NHL jitters worked out in a meaningless (to us anyway) April 9th game against Atlanta, then in the first round of the playoffs, potentially against the same team. While we have a great program in Hershey, nothing prepares you better for playing in the NHL like playing in the NHL.

3) He looks way better in red than maroon. Though he’d look even better in a non-retarded number (maybe next year).

Yes, we’d lose a year of RFA, but maybe we establish some goodwill by giving him his shot. I also think that’s a small price for building the core of our team in a year where we’re hoping to be more than a contender.

I just want them to give him a legitimate number so I can buy a jersey.

Boo to keeping him up. Yay if I’m proven wrong.

These stats he has right now are good but are very limited sample size.

He looks absolutely brilliant at times except in his own end. He makes a few real bone headed plays each game that aren’t even due to time or space issues.
If those go away in the next few weeks then super.

I think at some point we gotta learn if he’s going to sink or swim. I don’t think we’ll ruin him or the team by giving him a chance now. It makes sense, if he plays well now and for the rest of the season he could be helpful in the playoffs this year.

And this could be the year.

If he can help us win the Cup, then keep him here. Stanley Cup > a RFA year

I don’t see how it makes sense now. His numbers are good but he’s being very carefully managed by BB. If they were going to roll with him in the playoffs I would have rather they called him up earlier. If they do burn that 10th game, they had better do it to keep him up. Overall I just don’t think they handled him or Alzner well this year, and I hope it doesn’t come back to bite us. Delaying his FA years would have been extremely helpful, but there’s also not much doubt that he’s better than Sloan/Erskine for sure. So until Juice is healthy Shamo/Carlson is the best bottom pair we can do.

Maybe it’s rust as with the rest of the team, but seeing Carlson in a tense situation of puck indecision in both the Buffalo game and in person at the Tampa Bay game where he couldn’t get the puck out, and it caused a flurry on the goalies, it’s best to keep him in Hershey for the playoffs unless for injury call-ups.

It’s smart for Boudreau to use him now to boost confidence and gain familiarity with his teammates in case he needs to be called up in the playoffs. Alzner may be having a tad of a down year, but I think it’s a matter of his left-handed stick that’s keeping him out more because of the coach’s desire to get that left-right balance. Heck, we even picked up another righty in Corvo to maintain that balance, losing a righty in Pothier.

Also notice that analysts have said that Alzner’s play was better when paired with Jurcina, who is, yup, right handed. Say, you know who is left handed and could use to take a few more seats? Erskine. Couldn’t resist.

The Caps depth chart on the back line looks like this:

1. Green
2. Poti
3. Corvo
4. Schultz
5. Morrisonn
6. Carlson
7. Erskine
8. Alzner

Jurcina, when he comes back, probably slots in after Morrisonn, so at that point Carlson may go back to Hershey. If Juice slots in after Carlson, then Carlson will stay. I strongly suspect Juice will get a game or two in Hershey for conditioning after he gets healed up during the regular season. A sports hernia is something you have to test in game conditions…

For now, as long as Juice is out, Carlson is an NHL defenseman.

The last 2 teams Carlson has been on have won their tournaments. Carlson must have some good juju going on so if the Caps at least keep him as juice boy in the locker room, the Stanley Cup is in the bag. #Carlsonwinscups