The Anaheim Ducks made one of the biggest moves at this year’s trade deadline, acquiring star defenseman John Carlson from the Washington Capitals. The 36-year-old rearguard had spent his entire 17-season NHL career with the Capitals until the move, which saw two draft picks head in the other direction.
Carlson’s exit was a controversial and surprising one in DC, as many believed the Capitals’ all-time best defender should have been allowed to retire with the club. Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek recently spoke to NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger and shed some insight into how the negotiations occurred, and there is some disagreement between how he tells the story and how Capitals GM Chris Patrick outlined the same talks.
“I never mentioned [Carlson’s availability] just because, you know, he’d been with that organization for a long time,” Verbeek told Zeisberger. “It was like a lot of our GMs calls where we discuss a lot of things and tell each other what we’re trying to do to help our individual teams to improve. And then they brought up the name. They asked if we’d be interested in John Carlson.”
Verbeek specifically mentions that Carlson’s name was first brought up on the Capitals side, which directly contradicts how Patrick relayed the trade discussions to 106.7 The Fan’s Grant and Danny in a recent radio interview.
“I kind of approached it as I’m not really going to actively shop him, but if teams come to me, I’m going to listen,” Patrick said Tuesday. “As you’re making phone calls around, in the week or two leading up to the deadline and the week of the deadline, if his name came up, I’d kind of say, ‘Well, I mean, I’ll listen if you’re interested in doing something.’ And Anaheim was definitely, I think, one of the teams that felt like he would fill a huge need for them, and [Verbeek] was willing to get pretty aggressive right away.”
According to Patrick, the Capitals ended extension talks several weeks before the deadline, as the team slid further out of the playoff picture and other teams began to express interest in a trade. While Carlson was aware, in broad terms, that the team had to consider offers for him, he was not directly involved in any talks about his potential landing spot.
The way Carlson was informed of the trade also drew headlines as it was announced shortly after 1 am ET, and he wasn’t notified until around 6 am per Patrick. The GM explained at length that the Capitals chose to finalize the trade that night, so that details would not leak beforehand, as they did with Nic Dowd’s trade a day earlier, leaving Carlson to learn he’d been traded via social media.
In Verbeek’s interview with Zeisberger, he also revealed that the Ducks would like to explore extending Carlson’s contract past this season.
“I think the answer is yes,” he said. “But I think that, like all my other guys, I’ve got other UFAs, I’ve got RFAs. I think the whole mindset is just, ‘Let’s just play hockey, let’s get in the playoffs,’ and then we’ll let all that stuff take care of itself at the appropriate time. And so all of us are focused on playing the games. All that other stuff, like I said, will take care of itself.”
There is the possibility that Verbeek could be trying to position the Ducks better with Carlson by putting the trade on Patrick, knowing the Capitals won’t be able to speak with the defender again until July 1. Patrick was asked about potentially bringing Carlson back this summer in his first media availability after the deadline, but said he couldn’t comment on the situation.
“As weird as it is to say this and hear this coming out of my mouth, I actually can’t comment on John because he’s a property of another team, and that would be tampering,” Patrick said. “So it’s kind of bizarre to even say that.”
Carlson has yet to make his debut with the Ducks as he is still recovering from the lower-body injury he suffered in February with the Capitals. Anaheim says they expect to get their big addition on the ice for the first time this weekend against the Ottawa Senators or Montreal Canadiens.
