I appears to me that pizza delivery is the risk that comes with the responsibilities of being the primary offensive creator on defense. It seems like fans of most teams with high end puck movers/scorers all complain about this. As Caps fans we have destroyed Larry Murphy, Kevin Hatcher, Sergei Gonchar, Mike Green and now Carlson. Canes fans did this about Hamilton only recently. We used to scream about Orlov's pizza delivery and then his game went conservative with his shutdown duty and the turnovers were cut down. His job changed.
I think you guys are way too hard on Carlson. He is alot better than most here think. You guys complain about the pizza deliveries by Carlson. Usually your primary puck moving defenceman turns the puck over the most on their teams. Yet Carlson has only been credited with 13 turnovers so far this season. That is a very low turnover rate. There are actually 2 defenceman on the Caps that have turned the puck over more. Orlov with 20 and Jensen with 18.
Carlson also has a lower turnover rate than almost all the other top dmen in the league. Hedman, Fox, Josi, Burns, Karlsson, Elblad, Seth Jones and many others have a considerable higher turnover rate. The only top dman that I can think of that has turned over the puck less than Carlson is Makar.
Can someone explain how Carlson who moves the puck out of our zone more than any other dman on our team turns the puck over less than Orlov and Jensen? Yet Orlov and Jensen are getting praised while Carlson is our whipping boy.
You guys are under rating Carlson. You guys are stats guys. His stats are showing that he is playing well. All of his stats are decent. His offensive numbers are good again. Shooting % is up. Even meaningless stats like plus/minus and corsi are decent.
I don't get the hate.