{"id":833586,"date":"2026-05-31T02:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/833586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T02:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:08:18","slug":"john-carlsons-next-contract-will-be-particularly-pricey-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/833586\/","title":{"rendered":"John Carlson\u2019s Next Contract Will Be Particularly Pricey \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 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<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 In a column for The Athletic earlier this week, Pierre LeBrun reported<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

That would represent a $1MM raise on the $8MM he made over each of the last eight years.\u00a0 But it would be a well-earned increase.\u00a0 Between the Capitals and Ducks this season, Carlson recorded 14 goals and 46 assists despite missing 11 games due to injury.\u00a0 His 60 points were his highest since the 2021-22 campaign.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In essence, Carlson played like a legitimate top-pairing defenseman, so $9MM on the surface would seem reasonable.\u00a0 On the other hand, he\u2019ll turn 37 in January and at some point, he\u2019s going to slow down and his minutes will have to become more managed.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

In recent years, we\u2019ve 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.\u00a0 Carolina\u2019s two-year, $15MM deal to Dmitry Orlov<\/a><\/strong> three summers ago is a good example of that. \u00a0But it\u2019s something that isn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 Given Carlson\u2019s age, it becomes more palatable and it looks like he could very well be getting one of those now.<\/p>\n

While the overall depth in this summer\u2019s UFA class isn\u2019t particularly deep overall, there is some depth among right-shot defenders.\u00a0 Carlson is joined by Darren Raddysh<\/a><\/strong>, Jacob Trouba<\/a><\/strong>, Rasmus Andersson<\/a><\/strong>, and even Brent Burns<\/a><\/strong> as players who should at least be able to handle top-four minutes.\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n

Considering the extension didn\u2019t get finalized with the Capitals, it stands to reason that Carlson\u2019s camp believes he could do better on the open market.\u00a0 With that in mind, it seems likely that he\u2019ll be viewing that two-year offer as the floor in negotiations for his next contract.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see over the next month if that contract will be coming from the Ducks who would like to keep him around or if he\u2019ll opt to test the UFA market where LeBrun believes several Eastern teams are likely to make an offer.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not very often that 36-year-old players will get a raise on their next contract but that could…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":833587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[213960,3115,174913,293,62,67,132,68,3109],"class_list":["post-833586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2026-free-agency","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-john-carlson","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-washington-capitals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116666756000162182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}