ANAHEIM \u2013\u2013 Buying at the trade deadline and sitting in first place may feel foreign to Ducks fans that have come along in the past few years.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re quite familiar concepts to the newest member of the flock<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since defenseman John Carlson entered the NHL in 2009-10, his Washington Capitals had the second most wins and second most points of any franchise behind the Boston Bruins. They also placed fifth in playoff games played and won their division nine times in 16 seasons.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think this is a great move by Anaheim. John has a lot of hockey left in him. It\u2019s a perfect fit for the Ducks, and they will love him,\u201d said former Ducks bench boss Bruce Boudreau, who coached Carlson in Washington.<\/p>\n Boudreau said Carlson, 36, will join fellow right defenseman Radko Gudas, the Ducks\u2019 captain, and Jacob Trouba, the former New York Rangers captain now sporting orange, as mentors on a team overflowing with young talent. Carlson played with Gudas in Washington and has been part of USA hockey like Trouba and his closest chum, winger Chris Kreider.<\/p>\n When Carlson arrived in Washington, he was part of a young core that also included all-time leading goal-scorer Alex Ovechkin, who said Carlson\u2019s departure was the saddest day of his career, and savvy playmaker Nicklas B\u00e4ckstr\u00f6m. They would go on to amass tremendous success, reaching the summit in 2018 when they won the Caps\u2019 only Stanley Cup in more than five decades of existence.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019ll be the seasoned Carlson joining a roster that boasts brilliant center Leo Carlsson, gunslinging winger Cutter Gauthier, audacious attacker Beckett Sennecke and another star American defenseman in the making in Jackson LaCombe<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a very interesting and cool angle from this whole thing, too, is that I can add a lot of value both in my play and what I can do out there, but also what I can impart on them mentally,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much talent there and so much fun to be had that it\u2019s an exciting proposition. These guys, how skilled they are, they\u2019re top, top elite players that I\u2019m coming to play with. I\u2019m going to be learning from them just like I hope that they\u2019ll be learning from me.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson said that \u201cmentally, I\u2019m better than ever,\u201d that despite a recent lower-body injury his body felt its best in several seasons and that \u201ccoming into the year, I was as hungry as ever; I\u2019m not near done.\u201d<\/p>\n The Caps experienced a resurgence last year as Ovechkin was chasing Wayne Gretzky\u2019s career goals record, but lost to Carolina in the second round. Injuries and thick competition in the East transformed them into soft sellers at the deadline, including Carlson, who is in the final year of his eight-year, $64 million pact.<\/p>\n Carlson, who had limited trade protection and didn\u2019t have the Ducks on his no-trade list, said the reputation around the league for the Ducks had become \u201cvery positive\u201d saying they were described as \u201cthe real deal\u201d with \u201camazing pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve got all the makings of a team that\u2019s more than capable of (a deep playoff run). That\u2019s very attractive to me and very advantageous,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful to land in a spot like this, really, truly, everything from how I\u2019ve been treated so far to the quality of players that I\u2019ll be playing with and the community, everything sounds great.\u201d<\/p>\n Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek lauded Carlson\u2019s hockey IQ, saying he was \u201ca very intelligent player\u201d who joined \u201cthe rush in a real cerebral way.\u201d He also pointed to Carlson\u2019s value beyond the power play, where he\u2019d help balance the two units, saying his strong five-on-five numbers\u2019 importance would magnify in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Verbeek and coach Joel Quenneville\u2019s defense corps now features three veterans on the right side and a younger mix, with LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger, on the left.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s kind of the way it works out, man,\u201d an upbeat Verbeek said with a chuckle. \u201cAt some point, here in the next few years, the left side\u2019s going to be the veteran side and the right side\u2019s going to be the younger side. So we\u2019re going to take turns.\u201d<\/p>\n While Verbeek said he\u2019d put any serious contract talks off until the summer for the most part \u2013 perhaps with the exception of center Ryan Poehling\u2019s extension<\/a> on Thursday \u2013 he hoped to be able to re-sign Carlson. He, Gudas and Trouba are all pending unrestricted free agents.<\/p>\n Though Verbeek added at less conventional points in the season \u2013 a January trade for Gauthier<\/a> as a prospect and a December one for Trouba<\/a> in 2024 preceded the pickups of Kreider<\/a> and Mikael Granlund<\/a> over the summer \u2013 this is his first addition at the trade deadline itself, yet another of many indicators that the dark days are over on Katella Avenue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve been doing the last (four) years is adding assets. This was a time where I looked at giving this group another extra push, another little aid in helping us make this push to where we want to go,\u201d Verbeek said. \u201cIf we get into the playoffs and we can have a nice run, I looked at it like this: It\u2019s worth it. It\u2019s worth it to give this group experience, give them a chance to make the playoffs and to do well in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM \u2013\u2013 Buying at the trade deadline and sitting in first place may feel foreign to Ducks fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[233,191,5,4,43,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-492071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-capitals","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-washington","14":"tag-washington-capitals","15":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116190401768791097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}