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The Washington Capitals have re-signed John Carlson to a $64 million Chris Herndon Color Rush Jersey , eight-year contract that allows the Stanley Cup champions to keep the do-it-all defenseman.

Carlson will count $8 million against the salary cap through the 2026-27 season. General manager Brian MacLellan announced the deal Sunday.

”John has been an exceptional and consistent player for our franchise and has blossomed into being one of the top defensemen in the NHL,” MacLellan said. ”Defenseman like John are a rare commodity in our League and, at 28 years of age, we feel he is just entering his prime. As a right-handed defenseman, John plays in all key situations and has contributed greatly to our team’s success on the special teams. We are pleased for both parties to have come to an agreement.”

That’s not necessary for the 28-year-old who has made the Washington area his home and wanted to stay if there was a fit. The Capitals got the cap space necessary to re-sign Carlson by trading veteran defenseman Brooks Orpik and backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer on Friday night at the NHL draft.

Carlson outperformed his last deal that paid him just under $4 million a season and was at his best in a contract year. He led all defensemen with 68 points in the regular season and 20 in the playoffs to help Washington win the Metropolitan Division and then the Stanley Cup.

The contract makes Carlson the second-highest-paid player on the Capitals behind Alex Ovechkin.

Carlson averaged about 25 minutes a game all season, stepping up early when top-pairing defenseman Matt Niskanen missed time with injury and playing an important role on the power play and penalty kill on the Cup run.

”His value is immense,” goaltender Braden Holtby said. ”You can see that, how much he meant to our team in this run. As far as growth Chase Edmonds Color Rush Jersey , I think he’s grown steadily but I think he’s been pretty good for a long time. He’s been really good for a long time. I think this year it just showed through a bit more because we just forced him to play more.”

Carlson has been a mainstay on the Capitals’ blue line since 2010-11. The 2008 first-round pick has 333 points in 608 regular-season games and 55 points in 100 playoff games.

”I’ve always thought he was one of the better defensemen that I’ve ever played with,” winger T.J. Oshie said. ”This year, he elevated that quite a bit. In my eyes, he’s got to be a top-three or top-five defenseman in the league. You see what he does- he doesn’t do a lot of things that are really flashy, so maybe he doesn’t get the highlight-reel things that other guys do, but defensively, he rarely ever gets beat.”

Re-signing Carlson was just the first move on MacLellan’s summer checklist. He’s attempting to re-sign trade-deadline pickup Michal Kempny before Carlson’s defense partner can become an unrestricted free agent July 1, and he needs to negotiate new contracts for restricted free agent forwards Tom Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelly.

”We’re trying to sign Kempny http://www.49ersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-mike-mcglinchey-jersey ,” MacLellan said Friday. ”We’re trying to sign Wilson as an RFA and then make some decisions after that.”

There’s also the matter of replacing Barry Trotz as coach after he resigned and joined the New York Islanders. Associate coach Todd Reirden, who was a finalist for the Flames’ head job two years ago, is the heavy front-runner, though MacLellan wanted to sit down and formally interview him this week first.

”I think you still need to go through an interview process and ask the right questions,” MacLellan said. ”I just want to clarify on what he’s thinking system-wise and how he’s going to handle certain players.”

It helps his case that Reirden coached the defenseman and had a hand in the development of Carlson, Niskanen, Kempny and Dmitry Orlov.

”The players all know him, they’re comfortable with him Johnny Townsend Color Rush Jersey ,” MacLellan said. ”He’ll have a good feel for personalities, how to motivate people and so forth.”

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LAS VEGAS — After suffering the worst playoff loss in team history on Thursday night, a 7-0 shellacking by the Vegas Golden Knights in the first game of the Western Conference semifinals, the San Jose Sharks awoke to find that the sun did indeed come up in the morning.

Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said he was anxious to see how his team, which swept Anaheim in the first round, will bounce back in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.

“It’s the first adversity we’ve faced in the playoffs, real adversity,” DeBoer said. “It’s on us to respond now. … We’ve got a lot of character http://www.bearsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-anthony-miller-jersey , a lot of pride in there. This series is a long way from over.”

Pretty optimistic words for a coach facing a Vegas team that is 5-0 in the playoffs, 32-10-2 at home this season, and has the hottest goalie on the planet. Marc-Andre Fleury goes into Saturday night’s game with back-to-back shutouts and an eye-popping .982 save percentage in the playoffs.

The Golden Knights scored four goals in the first 12 minutes Thursday night, matching the total number of goals that San Jose and goalie Martin Jones allowed in the entire series against Anaheim.

Vegas had seven different goal scorers and 11 players who ended up on the scoresheet, led by center Jonathan Marchessault (one goal, two assists). William Karlsson and Reilly Smith each chipped in with three assists.

“We had a laundry list of issues,” DeBoer, who guided the Sharks to the Stanley Cup finals in 2016 Ronald Acuna Jr. Atlanta Braves Jersey , said. “We weren’t good. They beat us. … (But) you don’t get extra points for winning by a touchdown like they did.”

A win on Saturday and San Jose still goes home with a split and home-ice advantage. However, that possibility became a whole lot tougher for the Sharks on late Friday afternoon.

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety suspended left winger Evander Kane for one game for a cross-check to the face of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare during a third-period scrum that resulted in Kane receiving a five-minute major and a game misconduct.

Kane had 14 points in 17 regular-season games after being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 26. He had three goals and an assist in San Jose’s four-game sweep of Anaheim in the first round.

“It’s difficult, but it’s not,” DeBoer told the San Jose Mercury News on Friday before the suspension was announced. “It’s like an injury. If he’s out, it’s next man up and we’ll stick somebody else in there. It doesn’t change our preparation.”

Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said his team must guard against overconfidence after the lopsided win in the opener and continue its one-game-at-a-time approach that has proved to be so successful during their storybook first season.

“We just have to be ready to play the next game,” Gallant said. “We know San Jose is a good hockey club and that (7-0) is not going to happen again.

“They’re a great hockey team and we got some early goals on them and took advantage of that. They’ll be a lot better and hopefully we’ll be better, too.”

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