A decade since Sochi, John Carlson is still playing big minutes for the Capitals at age 34
John Carlson has played more hockey than anyone in the NHL this season not named Drew Doughty, and that volume has not gone unnoticed around the league. “He's playing a lot of minutes,” Detroit winger Patrick Kane said. A decade since playing with Kane for the U.S. at the Sochi Olympics, Carlson recently passed the 1,000-games milestone and is still shouldering a heavy workload at age 34. While Washington's longtime No. 1 defenseman isn't quite sure how he has been able to log so many minutes for so long — “I don't know, I think you just do it” — more than a half-dozen of his teammates from the 2014 Games believe Carlson's durability and longevity are a credit to his smarts and the ability to do everything on the ice, from scoring and setting up goals to preventing them by opponents while not letting all the shifts take a toll.
