Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery made a mid-game adjustment in Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Kings that paid almost immediate dividends. After an unsuccessful first half of the game from the team’s top-six forward group, the rookie bench boss shuffled his lines.
The most impactful change came to the first line. Alex Ovechkin was joined by team-leading goal scorer Dylan Strome and the recently-debuted Max Pacioretty. The new trio lit the lamp to tie the game at 2-2 on their very first shift together.
Goals in back-to-back games.
Leads the team with 15 tallies.
Dylan Strome should be an All-Star.RT if you agree#NHLAllStarVote pic.twitter.com/G3D9rOmgj1
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 7, 2024
The goal in question came with 4:25 left in the second period just after Ovechkin’s previous shift alongside center Evgeny Kuznetsov saw Los Angeles take a 2-1 lead. Pacioretty stripped Kings forward Pierre-Luc Dubois of the puck and fed Dylan Strome who came down 2-on-0 with Ovechkin on goaltender Cam Talbot.
Two passes later and Strome had a tap-in into an empty net. After the game-tying strike, Carbery would keep the three together for the rest of regulation.
“I didn’t like a sequence in the second period so that was just a decision to put O with a different group of players and then it paid off,” Carbery said postgame. “We end up scoring the goal there and we just continued to go with that hand.”
In the first line’s 6:37 of ice time together at five-on-five, the Capitals controlled play. The team held a plus-3 shot attempt differential; matched LA in scoring chances and high-danger chances; and scored that first-shift goal.
The trio is abnormal due to the handedness of its two wingers. Ovechkin is a right-handed shot that plays left wing while Pacioretty is a left-handed shot being asked to play right wing. Strome commented in his postgame media availability on how they handled that during the game.
“I was talking to Patch (Max Pacioretty) a bit about it because he said that he’s not used to typically playing the right side but thought it might be a little easier in the D-zone with how hard they were pinching,” Strome said. “He’s a great player, he can adjust on the fly. He’s been around for a long time. Fun to play with those guys. We were hunting pucks down, probably had five or six good chances in the third and didn’t give up too much.”
Carbery’s newly formed top line had instant success while his fourth line was the best of the night. With Connor McMichael’s line playing the most of any at five-on-five, there wasn’t much room for Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson, or Hendrix Lapierre. The three leftover forwards ended up spending much of the rest of the game on the bench. Or in Wilson’s case back in the locker room getting repairs.
The extra ice time was spread out among the other three lines. Strome said that the added responsibility gave the new line a jolt and more time to create confidence playing with each other.
“With the way things were going, coach gives you an extra shift and you try to take advantage of it and try to get out there and do something,” Strome said. “Patch made a great turnover and playing with a guy like O, he knows the offensive instincts of the game and gave me an open net. It was a great play.”
Pacioretty’s assist on the play was his first point as a Capitals player and his first point in almost exactly a year after he tore his right Achilles tendon for the second time in just five months. The 35-year-old winger has gotten into three games now with the Caps and may have found his new spot in the lineup.
Carbery was impressed with the veteran forward’s overall effort and expects him to only get better as he gets more games under his belt.
“I thought it was his best game,” Carbery said. “I know he’s probably going to say that he’s got another gear and can do some more things with the puck and I’m sure we’re going to see that but just from a competitiveness, on the puck, making the right plays in the right situations at the right times, I saw that tonight. [He] made a bunch of little plays that were, just to my eyes, the right play, strong play. That’s him just continuing to improve and I know it’ll just continue to get better as he gets more comfortable and more minutes.”
The Capitals have Monday off and then will hit the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for two consecutive days of practice before hosting the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night. We’ll see during those practices if Carbery plans to keep his new top-line connection together for more than just half a game.
Screenshot via Capitals
