The Washington Capitals’ 2024-25 season came to an abrupt close last season thanks to an unceremonious loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round of the playoffs. Despite Washington finishing the regular season atop the Eastern Conference — 12 points above the Hurricanes — Carolina made quick work of the Caps in the five-game series, ending what had been a promising season.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery took the loss to Carolina especially hard, noting at the time that he wouldn’t be able to let it go over the summer. Four months later, Carbery was asked on the first day of training camp whether he had used the offseason to form a new plan for counteracting the Hurricanes this season.
“Had a few nightmares,” Carbery said with a grin. “No, not a different plan. We’ve made a few adjustments to some of our structure, some subtle things that we’ll do differently or try to implement through training camp.
“We definitely dissected it and looked at every nook and cranny of that series and what went on and what we could have done better, not only on the ice but as a staff. I spent a lot of time doing that. And then, you hope to get back in a situation like that again and learn from the experiences, and can come out on the other side of it.”
Carolina’s defensive pressure proved relentless and unforgiving during the series, which turned even shots, let alone goals, into a precious commodity for the Capitals. The Hurricanes held the Caps to under eight shots in 11 of 15 regulation periods, and the Capitals recorded just one multi-goal game.
No Capitals player had more than two points in the series, with John Carlson, Tom Wilson, Jakob Chychrun, Aliaksei Protas, and Dylan Strome tying at the top of the team leaderboard. The Hurricanes also held every Capitals player, even the league’s newly-crowned all-time leader in goals, Alex Ovechkin, to one goal or fewer in the series.
At five-on-five, the Hurricanes controlled 62.6 percent of the shot attempts throughout the series, 57.7 percent of the expected goals, 57.6 percent of the scoring chances, and 52 percent of the high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick. Carolina would go on to fall in the Eastern Conference Final to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
The somewhat early playoff exit put a damper on what had become a career year not only for many of the Capitals’ players but also for Carbery as a second-year bench boss. Carbery’s stellar season went on to earn him the 2024-25 Jack Adams Award as NHL head coach of the year.
Heading into the 2025-26 campaign, Carbery believes both the team’s recent success and the sting of the playoff loss will help fuel his team.
“I think it’s just continuing to push the envelope,” Carbery said. “I think we have a highly motivated group not only as a team but individually, and so yeah, there were a lot of positives, a lot of things that went our way last year as a team and then individually. We need to be trying to push to get to another level. As a team, we found that out in the second round of the playoffs. So whether you had a career high in goals or a career high in points or earned a long-term contract, it doesn’t change a thing from our mindset coming into camp and what you’re trying to accomplish in season.
“You’re trying to have a better season than you had, whether you’re John Carlson, Alex Ovechkin, or Spencer Carberry as a coach. I’m trying to push myself to be a better coach this year and do a better job and find ways to help our players more often. So I don’t think it’s any different for our whole group. We’ve got motivated guys that are going to come in and try to have an even better year this year.”
Carbery took the first steps toward achieving those goals on Thursday, when he assembled what looks like it could be his initial idea for the Capitals’ lineup. The Capitals will play six preseason games against four different opponents as Carbery and his staff parse out who will make the cut for the team’s roster come Opening Night.
