WASHINGTON — John Carlson’s ironman streak has ended at 412 consecutive games, as the Washington Capitals’ defenseman missed Monday’s game in Buffalo with a lower-body injury.
Carlson “got twisted up a little bit” in Saturday’s 3-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens, according to head coach Barry Trotz, and did not practice with the team on Sunday. At Monday’s morning skate, Carlson briefly skated with his teammates before departing early, according to Monumental Network’s Mike Vogel.
#Caps are on the ice for morning skate in Buffalo. John Carlson came out briefly, skated gingerly for about two minutes, then departed.
— Mike Vogel (@VogsCaps) December 28, 2015
Carlson ranked second in Capitals history with 412 consecutive games played and was just 10 games shy of matching Bob Carpenter’s franchise mark of 422.
Since Carlson is out of the running, Karl Alzner now has Washington’s longest active ironman streak, having appeared in 411 consecutive games since the start of the 2010-11 season.
“When you play that many minutes,” Barry Trotz said earlier this month, “something is going to go wrong — someone is going to chop you or you’ll get hit with a puck blocking a shot or just illness, catching the odd flu. So from that standpoint [the ironman streak] is pretty impressive in this day and age because the game is played very fast and especially for the defensemen who are going back to retrieve pucks, they’re the guys who take a lot of the hits.”
Carlson leads the Capitals in ice-time this season, playing an average of 24:48 per game, and he leads all Washington defensemen with six goals and 27 points.
Before Monday’s game in Buffalo, the Capitals last played without Carlson in the lineup on April 6, 2010. The Capitals beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3 that night with the club’s six defensemen consisted of Joe Corvo, John Erskine, Shaone Morrisonn, Tom Poti, Jeff Schultz and Tyler Sloan.
With Carlson out, defenseman Connor Carrick made his 2015-16 NHL debut Monday in Buffalo. Carrick had a goal and six points in 34 NHL games in 2013-14.
