Spencer Carbery was a guest on “The Drop” podcast, Monday. The NHL’s reigning head coach of the year addressed a variety of topics with ESPN’s Arda Ocal and Greg Wyshynski, including his time in Hershey and his evolution as a bench boss over the years.
The most important subject Carbery discussed, however, was his relationship with Alex Ovechkin. Carbery revealed that he makes it a point to speak with the Capitals captain frequently, and for reasons more than one might think.
“I’ll talk to him. It won’t be, ‘Hey, do you feel like you feel good enough to play next year?’ But it’ll be like almost daily, ‘How are you feeling? How are you feeling physically, mentally? Where are you at?’” Carbery said. “I have a lot of conversations with him almost daily when we’re here, as long as it’s not an off day. And sometimes on off days, we’ll have some of our most productive conversations over the phone because you have a little bit more time on those days.
“Part of it is about him. But the other part is he’s our captain,” he continued. “So he’s got his finger on the pulse of our team. So I’m always checking in with him to see how things are going with the entire group and get his sense of what we need as a group. ‘What can I do? What can the coaches do?’ So, yeah, those are daily conversations, and making sure I’m checking in on how he’s feeling individually as well.”
The pair’s closeness appears to benefit the Caps greatly. Ovechkin’s productivity defied expectations during his age 38 and 39 seasons, scoring 31 goals after a slow start in 2023-24 and 44 times in 2024-25. After an offseason in 2024 that saw the Capitals bring in eight new players, Ovechkin and Carbery helped assimilate the group quickly, and the club prospered as a result, coming out of nowhere to finish at the top of the Eastern Conference standings last season.
“I think I would point to, first and foremost, our leadership group and Alex, John Carlson, Tom Wilson,” Carbery said. “And even I would go back to TJ Oshie and Nick Backstrom (who) recently have both moved on. But they’ve laid a foundation here. And so it’s kind of carried on of when new people come into our team. And this is, it was great when I came here. I’m like, ‘Yes, this is exactly how I would do it as well as a coach and a player.’ So this meshes perfectly. We do everything we possibly can, the players, the leadership group, and then myself and our staff, to make a player feel as comfortable as possible and as quickly as we can.
“And then make the expectations as clear and laid out as possible. That’s through communication and that’s through myself building a relationship and the players building a relationship with new guys, whether it’s a young player, whether we’ve acquired a player in a trade. And that’s, I think, what we take a lot of pride in, because we know, and I know, if ‘Joe Smith’ comes to the Washington Capitals and feels completely comfortable and knows exactly what’s expected of him and what he has to do on the ice, we’re going to get the best ‘Joe Smith’ we possibly can get. And that’s how we approach each individual player. And like I said, I think the players do and our leadership group does an amazing job of that. And then we try to replicate that as coaches as well.”
Heading into the 2025-26 season, Carbery knows there is a possibility this could end up being Ovechkin’s final year in the NHL. After having a front row seat to Ovechkin’s goals chase last season, Carbery admitted that he appreciates how the Russian superstar is handling questions about his future. While he believes The Great 8 is genuinely unsure what his next steps are, Carbery hopes Ovi’s decision to wait until the end of the season before making a decision minimizes the amount of distractions both he and the team has to endure.
“It would bring an element of [attention] in every building, especially when you go and play the Western teams where it would be the last time, you know, definitively that he ever goes into those arenas,” Carbery said. “No doubt. I can’t deny that. And so, you know, we just don’t know what the future holds. If he’s left it open and certainly as an organization, as a coach, you’re like, ‘Heck yeah, as many more years as you possibly can play.’ But we respect Alex so much and what he’s done in this organization.
“So when the time comes to make a decision on his future, he will. And I bet, too, a lot of it will have to do with how the year goes and at his age. And, you know, he’s just coming back from an injury right now in training camp, so hopefully he gets up and running. So I think that’s kind of the way that he’s, from my conversations with him, is he wants to see how the year goes, how he feels physically, mentally going through the grind and see where he’s at.”
