10:30 am: Washington has confirmed Carbery’s hiring, making the news official.
9:06 am: The Washington Capitals are expected to hire Spencer Carbery as their next head coach, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports Tuesday morning. Carbery was reported as Washington’s preferred candidate for the role as soon as early last week.
Per Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic, Washington is bringing in Carbery on a four-year contract, a hefty agreement for a first-time NHL head coach.
Washington entered the head coaching market a month and a half ago after the team announced they’d mutually agreed to part ways with veteran bench boss Peter Laviolette. Last week, El-Bashir listed Tampa Bay Lightning assistant Jeff Halpern, Philadelphia Flyers associate coach Brad Shaw, Hershey Bears head coach Todd Nelson, and free agent Bruce Boudreau as names also linked to Washington’s vacancy.
Carbery, who re-joins the Capitals organization after two years with the Toronto Maple Leafs as an assistant coach under Sheldon Keefe, is now entrusted with keeping the Capitals competitive during a transitional period. They aim to retool during the twilight years of captain Alex Ovechkin’s Hall of Fame career.
The 41-year-old Carbery has spent most of his coaching career within the Capitals organization since retiring as a player with their ECHL affiliate, the South Carolina Stingrays, in 2010 He spent just one season as an assistant on the Stingrays bench before being promoted to head coach and director of hockey operations, a role he held for five seasons, winning an ECHL’s John Brophy Award for Coach of the Year along the way.
Carbery then took a quick detour, heading to junior hockey to serve as the head coach of the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit for just one season before returning to minor pro as an assistant with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. In 2018-19, he returned to the Capitals, named the head coach of their AHL affiliate in Hershey (also winning Coach of the Year honors there). He then departed for Toronto in the 2021 offseason.
In Toronto, Carbery’s main responsibility was handling the power play – one that clicked at 26.6% over the past two seasons, trailing only the Edmonton Oilers. If you’re looking for a coach to help guide Ovechkin to the NHL’s all-time goals record, look no further.
Needless to say, that’s not his only qualification for the role in Washington. Carbery’s familiarity with the organization’s developing players, at least those who have been in Hershey since 2021, make him an attractive fit for a team looking to better utilize its younger talent.
It’s certainly a significant change in style from Laviolette, evidencing Washington’s organizational desire to place more emphasis on developing talent in-house. Competitive cores are rarely built solely through trades and free agency, and for Washington to have any hope of nearing Stanley Cup contention again during Ovechkin’s career, they’ll need the help of drafted and developed talents.
Capitals want to make Ovechkin happy. That’s why they sent Laviolette packing and are hiring someone who has no experience as an NHL coach.
The team is not only built around Ovechkin, it is built for Ovechkin.
Or they want to stay competitive, and they know their draft picks don’t have their best chance for developing into their NHL ceilings under Laviolette
As a Ranger fan,I’m disappointed he won’t be their next HC.I’m tired of retreads.
Laviolette’s stubborn insistence on healthy-scratch youngsters (particularly Anthony Mantha) was always somewhat puzzling. That will certainly improve under Carbery, especially since the pressure is off & the team has a lot of headroom to grow now.
Mantha is a soft player who isn’t going to offer much more than a tease. He is what he is. But I do agree that Laviolette did not give the younger guys a chance or more ice time when the old guys could have used a day off or a few less minutes at least. The best play they had last year was when Carlson, Wilson, and Backstrom were all out (and part of Oshie, but they continued playing very well Oshie’s first few games back) and they were forced to play the younger guys. They looked fast and played hard…older guys came back and we went right back to plodding.
The Caps have basically run the same PP setup for 7 years now, its beyond stale. Hopefully that can at least move up to around the top 10 again.
Yeah great comment Thornton. Hit the nail on the head.
Mantha has been a huge disappointment. He rarely ever plays hard and you can tell when he does because he’s making plays almost every shift. Most of the time he’s been here, he’s invisible out there and isn’t a factor. Mantha’s benching was deserved IMO. I blame Laviolette more for guys like Vrana, Alexeyev and Snively being scratches so much. Vrana was the big one because he’s a stud and I get that he had off-ice issues, but that was a mistake giving up on him like that.
.. and whatever happened to Connor McMichael? Barely seen him either. We haven’t even seen a glimpse of Hunter Shepard either. The Caps don’t really have much in the system to be excited about, but as Thornton correctly pointed out, the team played outstanding hockey with most of their star players on the shelf and played like ass once they came back. These players MacLennan insists on holding on to until they keel over are the problem and it’s not going to get resolved because Ovechkin wants his pals with him even if the team sucks that way.
I’ll give Carbery a shot and see what he can do, but I think the changes that need to be made won’t be made. These guys are old and will probably be off/on injured all year again, so maybe we’ll see the truth again once the young guys are back out there again. It was very telling last year seeing the performance change with and without the star players on the ice.
Once again, the writing is on the wall, but MacLellan and Ovechkin don’t want to see it. Also interesting that so many people reflexively assumed that these injuries were the problem because it usually is, but for this team it’s a blessing.
From what I saw of McMichael, he never got the ice time needed. Mantha would play, and he’d go -1 with 1 shot and you’d barely know he was out there, and McMichael would be in the press box. I’m not saying McMichael is the savior, but in what little I saw he could be a middle six contributor and he skates hard.
At least the team did deal at the deadline, and the Sandin move seems to be a plus (as opposed to the Penguins, which dug a deeper hole and still missed the playoffs). So I have a glimmer of hope that some turnover will come to be younger and faster next year. Still have 3+ months until camp. I think Carbery will be most effective with changes if the personnel turns over toward younger/faster.
As for the others, Alexeyev looked like he belonged. Snively plays hard and is certainly deserving of a bottom six spot somewhere in the league. I think Vrana’s issues are deeper, he was quick and could score but not interested in playing defense.
The one who needs a change of scenery is Kuzy and unfortunately no one’s gonna take him for what the Caps say he’s worth. Looks like another 80% effort season and 60 points in a Caps uniform.
I liked McMichael too and agree that Lavi never gave him a real shot to stick in the lineup. I hope to see him get the ice time until he proves he shouldn’t be.
Sandin I’m mixed about. He was pretty good from what I saw of him, but I remember seeing a convo on here among Toronto fans saying they didn’t feel Sandin had what it takes to be a top defenseman on a playoff team. Don’t know how true that is. He also suffered a pretty horrible knee injury a week ago in the IIHF World Championship and there doesn’t seem to be an update on him more recent than a week ago. This would be the second time in 14 months he has had a bad knee injury. I don’t know about Sandin yet, but he’s definitely good enough to be on the team we have now provided the knee injury isn’t as bad as it looked… and it looked real bad.
Agree on Alexeyev, it was frustrating always hearing he was scratched. I like his style and am eager to see what he looks like once he really settles in. Injury history concerns me with him as well particularly his shoulder. I will believe he can stay healthy for a full NHL season when I see it. Snively… yeah he was up for a game, put up two points and was a presence on the ice and Lavi rewarded him by scratching him the very next game. Just pathetic. He deserves a real shot just like McMichael does.
With Vrana… well we have another guy on the team that never liked playing defense (still doesn’t really) and he turned out ok. :) His scoring upside was worth more of an effort from the organization IMO. His off-ice issues (still don’t know exactly what they were) were also certainly a factor.
Yeah I’ve had it with Kuznetsov. I think one of the big issues this team has right now is there are too many players on this team that are way too comfortable. Kuznetsov basically brings a recliner out to the bench that he sits in he’s so comfortable. I hope that Carbery makes things a little less comfortable and makes it a free for all. Everyone earns their spot (and I mean everyone) or they don’t play.
Having said that, I think someone will bite on Kuznetsov just because of what he can do if he wants to. Some team will think they can motivate or “fix” him. He can still do the things he used to do, he’s only 31.