The Washington Capitals brought in AHL star Matthew Phillips on a one-year, one-way contract this offseason. The diminutive, highly-skilled forward has been a standout in the AHL for the past two seasons and is now trying to show his point-scoring abilities can translate to the NHL.
In a game that head coach Spencer Carbery labeled as pivotal for the ongoing Training Camp roster battles, the Calgary native came up with a goal and an assist in an impressive showing.
In his pregame media availability, Carbery listed off a handful of names fighting for depth positions within the team’s forward group and emphasized that he’ll be intently watching their play in this next stretch of preseason games.
“We’ve been monitoring that closely with Matthew Phillips, Joe Snively, [Aliaksei] Protas, Beck Malenstyn,” Carbery said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of assuming on what it will look like but from a coaching perspective that’s not the case for us. We’re evaluating all of those guys and we’ve got some decent runway here. We’re starting to get into the thick of things where the numbers will shrink down. This is a really, really important few games.”
Phillips, 25, skated on a line with Dylan Strome and Sonny Milano on Saturday in a preview of what very well could be a third-line combination for the Caps come the regular season. Carbery has specifically stated that he wants to see how Phillips plays in a bottom-six role this preseason.
“I think it’s specific to each guy,” Carbery said. “Do we feel comfortable with Matt Phillips potentially playing in a bottom-six role and being able to be productive there? And then with opportunity in game or opportunity due to injury he bumps up and now we can play him in more of an offensive role.”
According to HockeyStatCards, Phillips had the highest GameScore of any Caps player in the game. That means his impact on both sides of the puck, the points he recorded, and his individual game actions combined were tops on the team.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2023-09-30:#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/lV8dflDQTg
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) October 1, 2023
Phillips made his first appearance on the scoresheet as the Caps were on a power play during the second period. After a bit of a misplay on zone entry attempt, he made up for his error, won a puck battle, and fed Ethen Frank in the offensive zone.
Frank would then slide the puck over to Dylan Strome and Strome sent a pinpoint wrist shot past Ville Husso in the Red Wings cage.
Strome strikes on the power play pic.twitter.com/HsoI77cCv0
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 1, 2023
Phillips also scored his goal in the second period. The tally came as the finishing touch of a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play with linemates Strome and Sonny Milano.
The former AHL All-Star showed exactly why he finished second in the league in goal scoring last season (36) and has a combined 67 goals in his last 131 games. He put away the top shelf snipe from a sharp angle.
tic-tac-goal pic.twitter.com/0tOY6cDnp7
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 1, 2023
The contract that the Caps signed Phillips to is a one-way deal, meaning he will make his full $775,000 salary no matter if he’s playing in the NHL or AHL. If the Caps were to want to return him to the AHL, they’d have to place him on waivers so the one-way nature of his deal acts almost as a deterrent to other teams.
If things go to plan though for both parties, Phillips will stick around in DC and be a nice injection of youth, pace, and offense.
Headline photo: Katie Adler/RMNB
