John Carlson hit paydirt in an offense-fueled 6-3 win over the Florida Panthers Saturday night, notching his fifth goal of the season against former teammate Vitek Vanecek. Carlson’s tally ended a 25-game goal drought stretching back to January 14.
Though Carlson doesn’t have many goals on his stat sheet, that doesn’t mean he’s been struggling to get the puck in the net. He’s has had a series of goals overturned this season, most recently seeing one called back for a missed stoppage in play against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday. The frequency of Carlson’s overturned goals got to the point that it became a running joke on the Capitals’ bench.
“Dowder made a comment about that,” head coach Spencer Carbery recalled after that game. “He’s like, ‘I should have known it was coming back.'”
At one point, Carlson saw three goals taken off the board in a single month, with a trio of goaltender interference challenges all going against Washington in November. The frequency of no-goal calls became almost comedic as the Caps’ frustration built. By the end of the month, Carbery had all but given up on trying to decipher the league’s reasoning during interference reviews.
“When those decisions are being made, I have zero clue whether it’s going to be goalie interference or not,” Carbery said then. “It’s gotten to a spot that we’re going to have to do something as a league and as a sport and figure out where we’re going.”
A missed hand pass cost Carlson the goal Thursday, with officials ruling after an extended video review that they had failed to blow the play dead at the time, and once again Carlson found himself on the wrong side of a challenge.
So when Carlson scored Saturday night, the team lightheartedly suggested using subterfuge as they celebrated back at the bench to make sure the goal stayed on the board — even though there was no visible reason for Florida to challenge.
“We were joking in the pile, saying that Raddy (Taylor Raddysh) should lead the (celebration) line so that the league can’t call it back,” Connor McMichael said postgame.
The scorer’s identity wasn’t clear in the moments after the goal horn. Carlson loosed the initial slapshot from the high slot, but the puck appeared to deflect off Raddysh before going in — even Carlson wasn’t sure at first whether he had scored. Officials determined that the puck had not touched Raddysh’s stick and instead went off the skate of Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola.
“It’s hard to see in real time that [the goal] goes in off of their skate, so you’re trying to figure out, but someone made a comment on the on the bench about ‘Hurry up drop the puck,’” Carbery noted.
Once Carlson realized the goal was his, he was relieved when Florida’s bench didn’t motion for a challenge. Watching the game continue without a review was “a pretty good feeling,” he said.
“Yeah, it must have felt really good for him,” McMichael said. “Johnny got a well-earned goal there.”
Carlson has continued to rack up points even with a low goal total. He leads Capitals defensemen in scoring with 46 points (5g, 41a), including 17 assists during his 25-game goalless streak. Still, his relative dearth of goals is at odds with most of his NHL career — assuming he does not catch up to Jakob Chychrun’s 18 goals, this season will mark the first time someone other than Carlson leads Washington’s blueliners in goals since Mike Green did so in 2012-23.
Having seen what Carlson can do, Carbery hopes that Saturday’s oddball goal unlocks his goal-scoring ability for the remainder of the season.
“Knock on wood,” Carbery said, rapping his knuckles on his plastic podium, “When that happens, like, see how he scores that goal, it’s a lucky goal? Now they’ll start going for him. He needs one to break the seal.
“And now when he gets in — because he’s been in some really good situations with just the goaltender, where normally John can pick his spot, low blocker, glove, it’s part of what he does. He’s a sniper in those spots. And so usually one that goes in sort of in a weird way has a tendency to break the seal, so hopefully that happens for him.“
