On Jan. 6, 2025 in Buffalo, Caps defenseman John Carlson notched the 700th point of his NHL career, assisting on an Aliaksei Protas goal at 15:47 of the third period. Just over a month later, prior to a Feb. 9 home game against Utah, the Caps honored Carlson’s milestone achievement with a pregame ceremony featuring his wife Gina and their four children.
In between those two events, two others occurred. On Jan. 10, Carlson celebrated his 35th birthday. And on Jan. 21 in Edmonton, Carlson moved into the top 100 all-time in games played among NHL defensemen. Although he is still a long way from the top, Carlson could join a host of former Caps defensemen whose names dot the upper range of that list.
The list of NHL defensemen by career games played begins with Carlson’s former teammate, Zdeno Chara. After playing the 2020-21 season with Washington, Chara played one more season – his 24th in the NHL – with the New York Islanders before finally hanging up his skates at the age of 44 with 1,680 career games played, an all-time record for NHL defensemen.
With 1,635 career games, Scott Stevens ranks third on that list, and right behind him is Larry Murphy at 1,615. The Caps drafted Stevens in 1982, and both Stevens and Murphy played here throughout much of the 1980s. And with 1,495 career games, Phil Housley ranks eighth all-time among NHL defensemen. Carlson might be hard-pressed to catch up to Chara – and even Stevens and Murphy – but surpassing Housley and reaching 1,500 career games seems like it might be within Carlson’s reach.
While his birth certificate says he is three and a half decades old, Carlson still looks and performs like a younger man in this, his 16th NHL season. He is averaging just under 24 minutes per game this season after leading the NHL in that category (25:54) last season. With 35 points and 27 games remaining, Carlson also has a shot at a seventh 50-point season since 2014-15. He has already reached the 30-assist level for the 10th time in his career; no other Caps defenseman has more than half a dozen seasons with 30 helpers.
In his age 35 season of 2012-13, Chara averaged 24:56 per game. He managed just one season of 40 or more points over the remainder of his career, but he was averaging over 20 minutes per game right up to age 42.
Stevens skated 23:23 a night as a 35-year-old, and he was a Norris Trophy finalist the following season. He was 39 years old in his final season, but he is one of just five defensemen in NHL history to play as many as 150 games in the League as a teenager; he played 155 and Housley logged 152 as a teen. Florida’s Aaron Ekblad holds the record at 159 games played during his age 18 and 19 seasons combined.
Like Stevens, Murphy didn’t fall below 20 minutes a night until his final season, which was also his age 39 season. Housley averaged over 23 minutes a game during his age 35 season, but his age 38 season was his last in the League.
Carlson’s first NHL season is considered his age 20 season, though he did play three NHL games prior to his 20th birthday. His remarkable durability has put him in a position to ascend to the NHL’s top 10 in games played; Carlson has played all of his team’s games in eight of his 16 NHL seasons, and he has the opportunity to do so again this season.
Carlson has one year remaining on an eight-year contract extension he signed on June 25, 2018, less than three weeks after helping the Caps to their first Stanley Cup championship. When his current contract concludes in the summer of 2026, Carlson will become a free agent. Given the continuing high quality of his work on the ice, he may be able to sign another multi-year contract at that point.
Carlson is still more than 600 games shy of Chara’s total, so catching up to Big Z may be unlikely for the Washington defenseman; it would require more than seven full seasons beyond the current one. But given his age, his ongoing effectiveness and usefulness, and his general durability over the years, it’s not out of the question that Carlson climbs significantly higher among the pantheon of all-time great defensemen.
Many of his teammates – and his coach – believe he can do it.
“He brings so many different parts of the game to the table that, as you get older later in your career, where maybe you don’t have your fastball, you can depend on other things to go out and still be extremely effective in the game,” says Tom Wilson. “Obviously right now, he is a star in the League. But as you’re talking [playing into his] 40s and as you get older, he is just so good and has such a high hockey IQ. I think it’s generally those guys that are able to stick around for a long time.”
Since returning from a skull fracture that cost him half of the 2022-23 season, Washington’s two most often used defensive pairings – in terms of sheer minutes together on the ice – have been Carlson and Martin Fehervary, and Carlson with Rasmus Sandin. Washington boasts a strong and balanced group of defensemen, and Fehervary and Sandin are the youngest of the Caps’ six regular rearguards.
Over the years, Washington has been fortunate to have Carlson as a partner/mentor for its best upcoming blueline prospects.
“Obviously, Carly is a huge part of this organization, a great role model for everyone, for every young player,” says Fehervary. “And for me especially, he helped me so much my first established year when I was here. He was my [defense] partner, and he was always supportive, and always when he had something to help my game or improve my game, he helped me. And it's not just on the ice, but off the ice as well. He helped me with different kinds of stuff, whatever I needed. He was always here, and I can’t thank him enough to for helping me out when I was younger, and obviously it's great to have him still around.
“He is one of the smartest players in the League; he knows exactly where he's supposed to be. Obviously, his work with the stick is really great, and the plays he breaks up. It's really amazing to see how smart he is on the ice, and obviously his offensive mindset and skills are something unusual, and it's really cool to look at him and watch him and his shifts in the offensive zone.”
Acquired from Toronto in a Feb. 28, 2023 trade, Sandin has now played more games as a Capital (142) than as a member of the Maple Leafs (140).
“Both on and off the ice, it's about his smartness,” says Sandin. “Off the ice, he is taking care of himself. On the ice, he's smart. He skates when you have to skate, he's maybe not joining the rush all the time. When he shouldn't, he's not there, and when he when he should, he's there. He is just reading the game and feels like he's a step ahead at the game a lot of times.
“It's impressive, and it’s something that’s perfect for me to see up close too, and to learn from. Before, I used to try to join every single rush. But after a couple of games, you start to feel pretty tired. It’s perfect for me to have a guy like him and to be able to pick his brain a little bit. But it's just about how smart he is, especially. He is a big leader in this room and a guy to look up for me, for sure.”
Before joining the Caps last summer, defenseman Matt Roy spent the entirety of his NHL career in Los Angeles. As a right-handed blueliner, Roy has been able to play on the same team as Drew Doughty and Carlson, two of a dozen defensemen chosen in the first round of the 2008 NHL Draft.
“I think there are a lot of similarities between the two,” says Roy. “They’ve both been around for so long, so they have a wealth of experience that I can learn from. They both think the game more offensively, and they’re great at making breakout passes and finding seam plays that other guys might not be able to find. Those are the biggest things I’ve noticed. They obviously can produce points and all that stuff, and I think defensively they’re both really good. But they break out pucks at an elite level and I think that’s what separates them from most.
“I think they both treat their bodies really well; they take care of themselves and that gives them the ability to keep playing. They think the game really well, so they might not be rushing the puck up all the time, but they think the game really well and they’re in position all the time. And they make those passes that other players can’t. When you combine all those things – and there are many others, too – it just sets them up for success.”
It’s not just about what Carlson does on and off the ice; the Caps learned the hard way what life would be like without their “does everything defenseman” when he was sidelined for a couple of months with a skull fracture midway through the 2022-23 season.
“He is arguably our most important player; he is so reliable on the ice,” says Caps netminder Charlie Lindgren. “As a goalie, I see firsthand how when he is out there, everything calms down and he seems to always make the right play. He is a highly intelligent player.
“I go back to my first year here [2022-23], and we were starting to make a push that December. And then Johnny went down [on Dec. 23] and we could never regain our footing. I think it just shows the magnitude of how much John Carlson means to this team. And when he is out, it’s such a massive hole, and it’s hard to fill that when he is gone. I go back to that, and you see how important he is to our team. I love having him as a teammate and love having him as a friend. He’s just a really good human being, a really good guy and an amazing hockey player.”
Trevor van Riemsdyk is now Washington’s second most experienced NHL defenseman; he is in his 11th NHL campaign. As an undrafted defenseman out of University of New Hampshire, van Riemsdyk was able to crack the opening night roster of a talented Chicago team that would go on to win the Stanley Cup in his rookie NHL season of 2014-15.
“Johnny’s an all-time player in this League, a Hall of Famer,” says van Riemsdyk. “He has done a lot for this organization, for this team, with guys coming in here and learning from him and moving on.
“When I was young, I had [Brent] Seabrook, [Duncan] Keith and [Niklas] Hjalmarsson [in Chicago]. They brought me in and showed me the ropes, and he’s just like that. He’s a great guy and he knows a lot about being a pro on and off the ice. He obviously plays a ton of minutes; first guy on the penalty kill, first guy on the power play; he does it all. I think the thing those guys all have in common is that they’re super competitive. They want to win every night, and it shows.”
As a guy who is pushing 700 career games and still going strong himself, van Riemsdyk has made note of what separates some of the greats from the rest.
“I think it’s in the way they prepare themselves in the summer,” he says. “Duncan Keith was an all-timer at that, doing every little thing he could to improve his game, and looking for any little edge. He won a couple of Norrises and could probably have sat back and said, ‘I’ve got this all figured out,’ but he was always looking for that edge, that way to get one percent better. Johnny is always working at his game, and he’s obviously an incredible player; to be playing the most minutes in the League at his age is pretty incredible. And he is just as effective as ever. If you look at the last decade plus, he’s been the same player, and that’s a top 10 defenseman in this League.”
Even at age 35, Carlson remains a bit of a unicorn; he is one of just two defensemen in the NHL this season who is averaging at least 2:50 per game in shorthanded ice time and 3:00 per game in power-play ice time; Utah’s Mikhail Sergachev is the other. Carlson is that unicorn over the long haul as well. Among all defensemen who have played at least 400 games since Carlson entered the NHL in 2009-10, he is one of only two who have averaged at least 2:25 per game in shorthanded ice time and at least 2:55 in power play ice time over that span.
The other defenseman who holds that distinction is Shea Weber, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this past November. Drafted five years ahead of Carlson, Weber has been sidelined because of injury since 2020-21. Weber’s contract also has a year remaining; although he is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Utah has his contract buried on LTIR.
Weber has played 26 fewer games than Carlson (1,064) and has amassed 120 fewer points than the Caps blueliner.
Carlson is only the 31st NHL blueliner to reach 700 career points; nearly three times as many forwards (91 of them) have reached the 1,000-point plateau for their careers. Carlson is just the 13th defenseman to reach the milestone with the same team.
Among all American-born blueliners, Carlson’s 1,064 career games rank 18th; with reasonably good health, he could crack the top 10 before his current contract expires at the end of next season. Carlson’s 709 career points puts him seventh among all American-born blueliners in League history, and he could find himself in the top five before the end of next season.
This season, there is only one NHL skater who is aged 40 or older, and that would be St. Louis defenseman Ryan Suter, who played in his 1,500th career game a day before the Caps honored Carlson on Feb. 9. Suter now ranks second among American-born defensemen in games played, trailing only Chris Chelios (1,651).
Suter has pushed his way up the list with some remarkable late-career durability; he has not missed a regular season game since 2017-18, and he is still averaging over 20 minutes a night this season. He has played 358 games since his age 35 season ended, and his age 35 season was abbreviated by the pandemic, as was the following season. Suter has recorded 18 fewer points than Carlson while playing 436 more games to this point in their respective careers, but Suter’s average ice time has stayed above the 20-minute mark for four of the last five seasons, a good indicator of his ongoing value and usefulness as he ages.
If Carlson is able to engineer something approximating Suter’s last five seasons while remaining reasonably healthy, he will also join the Blues blueliner in cracking the 1,500-game barrier.
When Carlson debuted in the NHL in 2009-10, Caps coach Spencer Carbery was still active as a player; he was in his final season with the ECHL South Carolina Stingrays. Now a decade and a half into his coaching career, Carbery has a great appreciation for what Carlson brings to the bench and the ice on a nightly basis.
“What I’ve come to appreciate is what the rest of the world doesn’t see, and it’s a shame, because John is such an underrated defenseman,” says Carbery. “And hopefully I can help with that, and people will reflect back on his career and really peel back the layers of truly how good he is, and how much he has done for this team in a bunch of different eras. He does so many things in a hockey game that will not show up on a box score and the common fan doesn’t notice that he does at a really, really high level. He’s so intelligent positionally, penalty kill, 5-on-5, defending some of the fastest, most skilled players in the world, his stick positioning. You can just go down the list of all these little undercover plays and undercover decisions – defensively and offensively – that he makes every single game.
“And so the thing that I’ve come to appreciate is, wow, I didn’t realize how good John Carlson truly was. And what a shame – at least the way that I perceive it – how underappreciated he is and how valuable he is. And one more small thing. What he is doing right now in this part of his career, 2018 and all that stuff is really, really impressive. But this – to me – may be even more impressive, with our team now and as it’s turned over to younger players, and what he is doing now as a number one defenseman is special.”
Sandin’s own appreciation of Carlson has grown since the two have become teammates and blueliner partners.
“It changed quite a bit, to be honest,” says Sandin. “John was a guy I looked at before even stepping into the NHL, before getting drafted and all of that, mostly because he had some highlights that you could watch on YouTube. For a Swedish guy, that was always the easiest, because we couldn't keep track on the games a lot.
“But for me, before I played with him, I always thought of him more as just a pure offensive guy putting up a lot of points. And coming here and playing with him, you realize how important he is, and not only to the offensive game, but also the defensive game, playing the big minutes on the PK and shutting down plays when he's on the ice – it seems like all the time – and he's doing a terrific job. Just getting that close up look at him every day, you see that he's important all over the ice.”
And count Carbery as one of many of us who believe Carlson has what it takes to climb his way into the NHL’s all-time top 10 or 15 in games played, should he choose to play that long.
“My answer would be yes, because the thing about John Carlson and the reason I say yes is because he is such an intelligent hockey player,” says Carbery, echoing many of Carlson’s teammates. “You watch him get through games, and it’s why he plays and very rarely is hurt. He never puts himself in a position to get hit awkward into the boards; he’s just always in the right spot. And you’re like, ‘Gosh, John’s a defenseman going back on pucks all night, and I haven’t seen him get hit in like 10 games.’
“So to be able to continue to play with IQ like that, it’s why I don’t think necessarily [the deterioration of] physical [attributes] as you get older, and maybe [loss of] foot speed and that stuff, it doesn’t affect him as much as maybe it would on a normal player. And that’s because of his elite, elite IQ and intelligence.”
