Three Players That The Capitals Need To Perform Well In The Playoffs
By CJ Witt
John Carlson
If I was writing this before the season started I doubt I put Carlson on this list. However, based on the way his season has gone I feel like he needs to be a part of our list.
To start the season Carlson was on fire. For the first two months of the season Carlson was a no doubt Norris Trophy winner. Some were even calling for him to be in the Hart Trophy discussions as league MVP. After that, he was pretty iffy. Iffy enough that if I had a vote for the Norris I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have voted for him.
If Carlson can recapture what he was doing in the early portions of the season this will be an incredibly hard team to beat in the playoffs. Think of a lot of the recent Stanley Cup winners. Crosby, and Malkin had Kris Letang. Kane and Toews had Duncan Keith. Kopitar and Carter had Drew Doughty.
If you have that two way threat on the back end it is just an incredible luxury. Not to mention we saw Carlson himself drag the team to some wins early in the 2019-20 season.
On the flip side, if he and the Capitals defense plays like they did for large parts of the season, mostly the second half of the season, I’m not sure I can see this team going too far.
This really has been “the season of Carlson”. We’ve seen how good and how dangerous this team can be when he is firing on all cylinders. We’ve also seen how average this team can be when Carlson is, average or worse than that.
Average won’t get the job done. If the Caps want to go on a long run in the playoffs they’ll need Carlson at the top of his game.