It’s not very often that 36-year-old players will get a raise on their next contract but that could very well be the case for defenseman John Carlson. In a column for The Athletic earlier this week, Pierre LeBrun reported that before Washington moved Carlson to Anaheim at the trade deadline, the two sides were in talks about a two-year extension worth $9MM per season.
That would represent a $1MM raise on the $8MM he made over each of the last eight years. But it would be a well-earned increase. Between the Capitals and Ducks this season, Carlson recorded 14 goals and 46 assists despite missing 11 games due to injury. His 60 points were his highest since the 2021-22 campaign. On top of that, he showed that he can still handle logging heavy minutes as he averaged more than 23 minutes per night during the regular season and over 24 minutes per contest in the postseason.
In essence, Carlson played like a legitimate top-pairing defenseman, so $9MM on the surface would seem reasonable. On the other hand, he’ll turn 37 in January and at some point, he’s going to slow down and his minutes will have to become more managed. If he drops to more of a second-pairing player, that price tag becomes particularly high, even in this market, one that is going to yield some inflated salaries this summer.
In recent years, we’ve seen teams try to sign players to above-market short-term contracts, knowing that they will have some short-term cap flexibility to absorb the extra cost. Carolina’s two-year, $15MM deal to Dmitry Orlov three summers ago is a good example of that. But it’s something that isn’t going to necessarily be appealing to most free agents which is why not many of those deals have been signed overall; most prefer the longer-term security. Given Carlson’s age, it becomes more palatable and it looks like he could very well be getting one of those now.
While the overall depth in this summer’s UFA class isn’t particularly deep overall, there is some depth among right-shot defenders. Carlson is joined by Darren Raddysh, Jacob Trouba, Rasmus Andersson, and even Brent Burns as players who should at least be able to handle top-four minutes. This potential price point for Carlson should be particularly appealing for most of the others on that list (aside from Burns, who is likely heading for another one-year deal).
Considering the extension didn’t get finalized with the Capitals, it stands to reason that Carlson’s camp believes he could do better on the open market. With that in mind, it seems likely that he’ll be viewing that two-year offer as the floor in negotiations for his next contract. We’ll see over the next month if that contract will be coming from the Ducks who would like to keep him around or if he’ll opt to test the UFA market where LeBrun believes several Eastern teams are likely to make an offer.
Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.