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John Carlson skates with Capitals in non-contact jersey for first time since head injury

By Chris Cerullo

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March 8, 2023 12:05 pm

John Carlson has not played in a game for the Capitals since December 23 when he got hit in the side of the head by a Brenden Dillon slap shot. He has hardly been seen skating at all since then.

That’s why it was an incredibly good sight on Wednesday when the veteran defenseman jumped onto the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex with the rest of his teammates. Carlson sported a dark blue, non-contact jersey and skated on the team’s extra defense pairing with rookie blueliner Vincent Iorio.

The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir posted video of Carlson skating some laps before practice began.

Carlson was at the rink this past weekend catching up with former Capitals number one netminder Braden Holtby at the PWHPA Showcase. He also recently joined the Caps on their four-game road trip that took them to the West Coast this past week.

Carlson is still on long-term injured reserve, but has been getting in extra work with skating coach Wendy Marco of Cold Rush Hockey.

El-Bashir added that Carlson has a doctor’s appointment this week and that he will speak to reporters after that happens.

All of this news comes less than a week after Capitals’ general manager Brian MacLellan gave an injury update on the star rearguard during his annual post-trade deadline press conference.

“He’s got a little bit (of time) left,” MacLellan said then. “He has a set timeframe here. Near the end of March, around that timeframe, is when we can get serious about if he can come back.”

The Capitals have posted a 12-15-2 record with Carlson out of the lineup which has caused them to fall out of contention for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. MacLellan pointed to Carlson’s absence as one of the main reasons for that drop.

“He’s your number one D that plays 22 or 23 minutes a night out of our lineup since the end of December,” MacLellan said. “I thought we had a really good December where we outplayed teams and played really well. Had a really good record. Then John went down and that’s when I think our inconsistency started.

“It’s hard to replace a guy like him,” he continued. “We bumped guys up in the lineup and increased their minutes, which most of them handled well, but it’s still not the same as having John in there playing both the power play and penalty killing. I do think it had a big effect on the results from the end of December on. It contributed to what I would call our inconsistencies. There’s games where we played really well against real good teams and then there was games where we didn’t play well against lower-tier teams that we probably should have. Having Carly in there would have had a big impact on our lineup.”

Carlson has 21 points (8g, 13a) in the 30 games he has played this season. He is also still the team’s leader in average time on ice per game at 23:24.

Photo: Katie Adler/RMNB

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