Friday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, John Carlson was fantastic. The 2016-17 season has been a bit of a struggle at times for the American defenseman. Carlson scored one goal in his first 31 games. He often foiled the Washington Capitals’ power play early in the year with misplaced passes to Alex Ovechkin or point shots that badly missed the net.
Things seem to be improving, however. Carlson has nine points in his last 10 games. Against Tampa Friday night, Carlson was more aggressive than usual, firing a game-high six shots on net. The two goals he scored in the first period gave the Caps stalwart his second career two-goal game.
Less than a minute into the game and John Carlson finds the back of the net! #CapsHolidayParty #RockTheRed pic.twitter.com/Acc1pKOpEN
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 24, 2016
On Carlson’s first goal, the defenseman took a pass from Karl Alzner and overpowered a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy’s glove.
Carlson x2! #CapsHolidayParty #RockTheRed pic.twitter.com/64fjobmRNW
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 24, 2016
Fifteen minutes later, Carlson struck again, blasting a one-time pass from Marcus Johansson into the far side of the net.
“The first one kinda got a little bit lucky and the second one I made a pretty nice shot,” Carlson admitted.
Though typically reserved Carlson, he unleashed a giant smile after the goal, engulfing Johansson in a big hockey hug. Carlson, though, could not completely the hat trick. Only two other defenseman in the history of the franchise have scored three goals in one game: Kevin Hatcher and Sergei Gonchar.
After the game, Carlson was given the Will Over Skill robe by his teammates. The robe signifies the player that exhibited the greatest effort.
Your #WillOverSkill Robe goes to @JohnCarlson74! #CapsBolts #RockTheRed pic.twitter.com/u7R7hXsHNy
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 24, 2016
“It’s good so we can try to build off that momentum on the other side of it and I think everyone’s looking forward to a couple days off, shut their mind off a little bit and enjoy ourselves,” Calrson said. “It’s going to be a crazy next month or month and a half with all the games that we play so it’s kind of our last time to relax before that.”
Full Coverage of Lightning at Caps
Additional reporting by Chris Gordon.
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