ARLINGTON, Va. -- Being on the verge of playing his 1,000th NHL game has John Carlson thinking back to the start of his career with the Washington Capitals in 2009.
“When you first break into the League you think about certain things, and you see guys hitting milestones and you think, ‘Oh my God. There’s no way I’m going to be able to do that’ or ‘That seems so far away,’” Carlson said last week. “And here we are.”
Carlson is expected to become the third player, and first defenseman, to play 1,000 games with the Capitals when they host the Boston Bruins on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; MNMT, NESN). After passing Calle Johansson for most games by a Capitals defenseman when he played his 984th against the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 26, Carlson will join forwards Alex Ovechkin (1,416) and Nicklas Backstrom (1,105) in Washington’s 1,000-games club.
Reaching the milestone with one team adds to the significance for Carlson, who was selected by the Capitals in the first round (No. 27) of the 2008 NHL Draft.
“It means a lot,” Carlson said. “Obviously, everyone wants a good career, and everyone wants to have a long career and to do it for one team would be even more special just based on all the relationships and the ties that I do have to this organization now.”
Carlson watched T.J. Oshie, who played 443 games with the St. Louis Blues before being traded to the Capitals in 2015, play his 1,000th game March 16 at the Vancouver Canucks and saw in his emotions that night his appreciation for the milestone. He figures to experience something similar Saturday.
“There’s so much that goes into it,” Carlson said. “There’s so many factors that makes it special. I think timing and where the team is and how you perform, there’s so much that goes into it, but I don’t take it lightly that I get to do it for one team.”
Carlson is Washington’s all-time leader among defensemen with 667 points (148 goals, 519 assists) and is one goal behind Kevin Hatcher (149) for the most by a defenseman. The 34-year-old is also the Capitals’ all-time leader at the position in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 19 goals, 54 assists, 74 points and 123 games.
That includes 20 points (five goals, 15 assists) in 24 playoff games when Washington won the Stanley Cup in 2018.
“John does not make any excuses for himself ever on the ice, and that’s one thing that I really admire about him,” Oshie said. “Every time he goes out there and does the job whatever is asked, if it’s 30 minutes a night, if it’s less than that…. He’s just very even keeled and so incredibly reliable.”
In his 15th NHL season, Carlson has 45 points (seven goals, 38 assists) in 72 games and continues to play in all situations -- 5-on-5, power play, penalty kill, etc. He is second in the League in averaging 25:41 of ice time per game, behind Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty (25:46).
“There’s so many guys in every lineup that are, I don’t want to say replaceable, but a little bit interchangeable with guys in the minors or guys out of the lineup for whatever reason,” said former Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik, now a member of the team’s development staff. “And then there’s the higher-end guys like John that you can call guys up and try to say that you’re going to replace his minutes by committee, but it just doesn’t ever work.
“I think it’s just one of those cases where you don’t realize his value until you don’t have him in the lineup, like they did last year.”
Carlson missed 36 games last season after he was struck near his right ear with a slap shot during a game against the Winnipeg Jets on Dec 23, 2022, fracturing his skull and lacerating his temporal artery. Washington went 14-18-4 during Carlson’s absence and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
After returning to play the final 10 games last season, Carlson hasn’t missed a game this season, and the stability he has provided to the defense is one of the reasons Washington (36-27-9) is in position to return to the playoffs this season. The Capitals lead the Detroit Red Wings by two points for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference and trail the Philadelphia Flyers by one point for third in the Metropolitan Division.
“When John isn’t in our lineup, our back end is missing its leader, it’s captain,” Oshie said. “It’s the same thing if we miss [Ovechkin] on the front side. The lines just don’t look the same. The [defensive] pairs don’t look the same without John, so that time that he was away, something that we’re not used to, was a difficult time for our team, for sure, but definitely our back end without having him.
“He’s kind of the backbone back there.”
Carlson, an alternate captain, inherited the job as the leader of the Capitals defense after Orpik retired in 2019 and has been an invaluable mentor for the team’s young defensemen, which include 24-year-olds Rasmus Sandin, Martin Fehervary and Alexander Alexeyev. In addition to his on-ice tutelage, Carlson has provided an example with the work he puts in off the ice.
Sandin noted how Carlson is usually one of the first players at the rink to get ready for practices and games.
“What I’ve seen from him is just how much he takes care of himself and how much he prepares himself for every single night,” Sandin said. “How he gets in the gym and warms up and gets his body moving and makes sure he can keep playing almost 26 minutes a night for 82 games, he’s preparing himself for that and then the same with recovery and all that.
“He’s just taking care of himself in a great way and that’s great for a young guy like me to learn a lot.”
Carlson also attributes his longevity to mental preparation, which is something he learned from Johansson when he was a Washington assistant from 2012-2014.
“You can watch video with every coach and the mistakes are always going to be there. The great plays are always going to be (there),” Carlson said. “There’s going to be a mixed bag of whatever and the video is the video, but there’s so much more to this league and how you react, how you become a leader, how do you mentally prepare yourself. All those things are the fine-print details that I think make or break lots of careers.”
Carlson’s career has included scoring the overtime goal for the United States against Canada in the gold-medal game of the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship, representing the U.S. at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and winning the Calder Cup with Hershey in the American Hockey League in 2009 and 2010 before winning the Stanley Cup with the Capitals.
Though Carlson has never won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman, he finished second in the voting behind Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators in 2019-20, and was selected to the NHL First All-Star Team in 2019-20 and the NHL Second All-Star Team in 2018-19.
“It puts you in a Hall of Famer class, to me, when you’ve done that for so long and as long as he has,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Now, at the point he’s at in his career, even adding a layer of leadership to our young defensemen back there, and even young forwards. …. So, it is impressive to think of all the situations that he’s played in and for how long he’s done that for.”
