John Carlson 2023 Report Card

This season was a weird season for popular Washington Capitals dnefeensman John Carlson. Today we grade his season.

Carlson missed over half the season as he got struck in the face by a slap shot on Alex Ovechkin’s historic night. He ended up coming back before the season ended, playing in a total of 40 games.

He had nine goals and 20 assists for 29 points. He would’ve probably had a career offensive season if he was healthy the entire year and it was sad being without him for an extended period of time. And the team got cold as a result of that.

At five on five Carlson had a Corsi For percentage of 51.04 percent, an Expected Goals For percentage of 51.95 percent, and a High Danger Chances For percentage of 49.31 percent, via Natural Stat Trick.

Carlson described his mid season injury to Tarik El Bashir in The Athletic (subscription required) saying, “I just got struck by lightning. That’s the only way to describe it.”

Instead of celebrating Ovechkin’s Gr802 with his teammates he was carried out of Capital One Arena in a stretcher. He added:

“There’s always close calls. There’s always a lot of, ‘Oh man, that could have hurt or that could have been bad’ times. This was bad. It’s a one-in-a-million thing — and it happened to me.”

It came less than a minute into the third period with the Capitals hosting the Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 23. Carlson was drilled 90 miles per hour by a slap shot from former Capitals defenseman Brenden Dillon.

It left Carlson with a small skull fracture above his right ear and a severed temporal artery. He said, “It was bleeding so much. The only way I could describe it is, just survival.”

Grade B-: We are glad Carlson came back from that injury and hope he can do even better next season. He would’ve had an A if he was healthy and had that career year I was talking about earlier. But a B- after coming back from an injury is still pretty good.