I think Carlson is a lot better this year and his next contract may be cheaper than Karlsson's. Karlsson may get better again, and may even get to scoring twenty goals again, but as the Caps learned with Jagr and Erat, sometimes a down season is a sign of a couple more to come. For all the talk of Karlsson being a generational talent on defense, we may have already seen that ceiling, with his multiple twenty goal seasons, and his amazing play in the last NHLympics, and in last year's playoffs. Carlson is two years older, currently healthy, trending up, has fewer past accomplishments to negotiate a contract on, and still has something to prove in the playoffs. He also has years of experience playing with Ovechkin. If they don't keep Carlson, I don't see trading Holtby, Connolly, Burakovsky, Djoos, and Stephenson just to replace him, add a prospect and another team's recent late first who almost scored twenty goals last year, and then this year, didn't.