Sit John Carlson vs Kings in fantasy matchup

We’re back with another Washington Capitals fantasy hockey article for you fantasy players out there. We just talked about the value picks to add to your roster. Who do you bench tonight if your team has any Caps players? Tonight unfortunately is John Carlson.

Tonight’s game will be the 17th Capitals vs. Los Angeles Kings matchup featuring the second and third highest scoring defensemen from the 2008 NHL Draft in Carlson, who’s 27th overall, and Drew Doughty who was taken second overall.

Carlson and the Capitals have an 8-6-2 record against Doughty and the Kings in the previous 16 meetings and Carlson has outproduced Doughty head to head. Carlson has 10 points in that matchup with four goals and six assists while Doughty has five assists.

Carlson leads the NHL in time on ice per game with 26:10 while Doughty ranks third with an average of 25:36 time on ice.

However, Chris Morgan of Yahoo Sports writes that Carlson is one of the defensemen to avoid tonight. Here’s his reasoning:

It’s clearly the matchup to avoid, and Carlson is the only viable defenseman on the Capitals from a DFS perspective more often than not. The Kings are in the top five in GAA, shots on net allowed per game, and penalty-kill percentage. So yeah, that doesn’t bode well.

The Kings are just overall a better defense team so for a Capitals offense that has struggled it’s going to be difficult to put pucks to the net. And the thing about Carlson is that he’s more of an offensive defenseman.

I almost put Alex Ovechkin in here but I just couldn’t. Dylan Strome was also one I opted not to mention in here. Ovechkin I would get crucified while Strome is the best offensive player the Caps have this season.

You can catch the game at 10:30 p.m. eastern on Monumental Sports Network.