Everyone gather ’round. It’s time for us to fight about John Carlson again.
By the Numbers
5
Goals
46
Assists
79
Games played
24
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
54%
Shot attempts
54%
Expected goals
55%
Actual goals
Isolated Impact by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This image by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows how the player has impacted play when on the ice. At the top of the image is the team’s offense (even strength at left, power play at right) and at bottom is the team’s defense (with penalty kill at bottom right). In each case, red/orange blobs mean teams shoot for more from that location on the ice, and blue/purple means less. In general, a good player should have red/orange blobs near the opponent’s net at top, and blue/purple blobs near their own team’s net at bottom. The distributions in middle show how the player compares to league average at individual finishing, setting up teammates to score, and taking and drawing penalties. The number at center is Synthetic Goals: a catch-all number for the player’s impact.
Player Card by All Three Zones
About this player card: This image from Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones shows how the player compares to league averages in different microstats in the defensive, neutral, and offensive zones. Blue bars mean the player has a higher rate in that statistic compared to league average, and orange means a lower rate. The numbers are Z-scores, also known as standard deviations, indicating how far the number is from league average, where more than two standard deviations means the player is on the extreme edge of the league.
Player Card by Evolving Hockey
About this player card: This card from Josh and Luke of Evolving Hockey compares the player to league averages based on their impact on on-ice statistics. GAR means “goals above replacement,” where “replacement” means an average player called up from the AHL. xGAR is the same figure but assuming league-average goaltending. The numbers at top are the player’s percentile ranks overall and then for offense and defense alone.
Player Overview by NHL Edge
About this visualization: The NHL’s advanced statistics program, Edge, tracks player and puck movement. At left are the player’s numbers in various statistics along with the average number for that same stat among players of the same position and the player’s percentile rank in it. At right is a radar chart for various statistics, where the bigger the shape the better the player performs in those measures.
Fan Happiness Survey
About this visualization: At three times during the season, RMNB conducted an open survey with readers, asking the following question for each player: “On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?” The numbers above show the average score for the player in each survey period.
Slavoj Žižek on Carlson
The reason why 74 is so detested is not because of any defensive shortcomings, it is because his play reminds us of our own mortality! And that is unacceptable!
Peter’s Take
Welp, I guess we’ve got to do this again. This is our yearly ritual where I write that John Carlson is actually very good, and then you call me names, and then we talk about that one game in the Carolina series, where he got rotisseried, and then we all throw up our hands and agree to do it again next year.
Aside from getting hosed on multiple disallowed goals, John Carlson was – once again – decidedly on the right side of the puck this season, outscoring opponents 65 to 52, with underlying stats to match. I know you saw him lose his man on backcheck, and I know you saw him turn the puck over at the blue line, and I’m not going to deny that those things happened. But I want you – in a rare and brief moment of charitable thinking – to imagine that John Carlson is an elite athlete who is capable of making strategic decisions. Carlson makes riskier choices when he’s on the ice with Ovechkin, and he plays more cautiously in other situations. This calculation has been wise and successful.
The Caps were plus-10 in goals when Carlson and Ovechkin were on the ice together. That happened despite opponents generating 3.3 expected goals per hour against them – a higher rate than any individual NHL defender got. They take chances – pinch, force passes, whatever – because they know they can score, and they score because they take those chances.
And then, when Carlson is on the ice without Ovechkin, the strangest thing happens: he’s normal.
This season, the rate of expected goals that opponents got against Carlson when he was away from Ovechkin was below league average. And in those situations he was starting in his own zone far more often.
The thing about John Carlson is that he’s so conspicuous. He’s a constant puck-carrier and an elite passer (check out the blue bars in the All Three Zones visualization above) – but that means he’s very noticeable. Unless he’s scoring the goals himself, and boy did he ever not do that, then he’s at risk of seeming like a passenger (a 46-time passenger?) or a liability. But he’s not.
Well, he wasn’t until Game 3 of the Carolina series. He didn’t defend that game, and I’m not going to defend it for him.
I kid because I love. John Carlson has surpassed Mike Green as the most under-appreciated Caps defender of the analytics era. He’s got one more season of earning $8 million, and then who knows what’s going to happen, but I’m setting up a little pup tent on this hill called John Carlson is Good Actually and I’ve got a canteen and a fire and a hot dog on a stick, and I’m prepared to die here.
Carly on RMNB
- Carlson on Ovi’s milestone: “I think we all would love that. You know, for him, the weight off his shoulders. For us, 40-goal-scorers don’t grow on trees. I think one thing I’ve learned is not to doubt him and his goal-scoring capability. So we’d love him to get that this year.”
- Per Craig Laughlin, John Carlson has eery road/home split stats.
- Carlson was plagued by disallowed goals this season, starting with a phantom goaltender interference call against Connor McMichael
- Carbery on that call: “When those decisions are being made, I have zero clue whether it’s going to be goalie interference or not.” I actually do know but I’m not telling.
- Carlson was a 4 Nations snub. One of many in DC.
- In January, Carlson became the 31st NHL defenseman to score 700 points. There was a pregame ceremony.
- Carbery on ‘underrated’ Carlson: “He does so many things in a hockey game that will not show up on the box score”
- Carlson was involved in the big brawl with the Seattle Kraken
- After a 25-game goalless slump including all those overturned goals, Carlson finally got back in the G column in March.
- Carlson got some rest late in the season.
- Carlson got the GWG in the Caps’ win Game 2 against the Hurricanes.
- But wasn’t quite so good in Game 3.
Your Turn
You may now apologize to me in the comments for being wrong and mean about JC74.
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