Pucks and Pitchforks
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New Jersey Devils Avoid Disaster In John Carlson Contract

By Nick Villano

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 30: Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson (74) celebrates his second period goal against the New Jersey Devils on December 30, 2017, at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 30: Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson (74) celebrates his second period goal against the New Jersey Devils on December 30, 2017, at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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The Washington Capitals announced a major extension for defenseman John Carlson. While he may have been the crown jewel of the offseason, the New Jersey Devils are lucky they didn’t sign him.

The New Jersey Devils need defensive help. This is not breaking news. It’s been years since the Devils were winning games on the backs of their blue line. Even when the Devils made their run to the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, they had Marek Zidlicky and Andy Greene leading the defense, with Anton Volchenkov and an aging Bryce Salvador providing supporting roles.

The past few seasons, the Devils defense has been an albatross. If the Devils didn’t trade for Sami Vatanen during the season, they could have the worst defense in the league. Even with Vatanen, the defense is this team’s biggest flaw. It’s not even close.

For these reasons and more, it makes perfect sense the Devils could have gone big for Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson. For one, he was becoming an unrestricted free agent. That means he would only cost cap space and money, instead of assets in a trade. Sure, it’s a lot of money, but the Devils have to spend sometime, right?

Here’s the thing, the contract Carlson got from the Capitals is insane. Carlson is checking all the boxes for a contract that a team regrets. He had by far his best year of his career in a contract year. Coming into this season, he scored more than 40 points once. This season, he scored 68. He also recorded career highs in goals, power play points and, here’s the interesting stat, a career high in shots. It seemed like he was more willing to take a shot, when he knew teams would be looking at his stats, in the year he was going to get paid.

Carlson is going to make $8 million against the cap over the next eight seasons. The contract is very convoluted. He gets paid big money in the first two years (between salary and signing bonus: $12 million). He makes $8 million over the next two seasons, with different bonus structures based on possible lockouts. Then, he gets $6 million over the next four years. It’s almost like this contract was built to get traded to the Arizona Coyotes in five years.

Carlson would have been a great addition to this team, but adding that much salary for a player that’s not the best at his position, or even top five, is a fool-hardy play.

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This deal would be fine this year for the Devils. It would have been okay next season. It would make things quite impossible once Taylor Hall, Nico Hischier and Vatanen become free agents. The Devils would need to make really hard decisions because of Carlson’s contract and he wouldn’t be enough to push them over the top.

That’s the real issue here. Carlson is not enough to make the Devils Stanley Cup contenders overnight. Certain defensemen are. If the Devils were able to sign Erik Karlsson, no matter how much of a long shot it is, they become Stanley Cup contenders (with a healthy Cory Schneider). That same outcome doesn’t happen with Carlson.

The good thing is the Devils never had a chance to put themselves in this position. Carlson signed before hitting the market. The Capitals made moves in order to free up space to sign Carlson. This is going to be a problem in the future. However, luckily, it’s not the Devils problem.

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