The Washington Capitals fired assistant coach Mitch Love on Sunday following an NHL investigation into his personal conduct.
With Love’s immediate departure, the Capitals are left with a hole in their coaching staff. Head coach Spencer Carbery was asked Monday morning whether the team had yet found a permanent replacement for Love.
“We haven’t made any definitive decisions as an organization,” Carbery said. “We’ll talk about that with what came out yesterday and make a decision in the near future.”
After Love, who coached the team’s defensemen, was initially put on team-imposed leave by the Capitals, Carbery announced that Hershey Bears assistant coach Patrick Wellar would remain in DC as a temporary part of Washington’s coaching staff.
Wellar has been a coach with the Bears since 2018, joining the team a month after Carbery came on as head coach. Carbery awarded Wellar with a game puck after the Capitals’ first win of the season earlier this month.
So far this fall, Wellar has taken up Love’s role with the blueliners and, Saturday night’s blowout loss to the Ottawa Senators notwithstanding, the team has been one of the best defensive teams in the NHL. Even after the 7-1 defeat, the Capitals still rank first in the league in goals against per game (2.33).
Brent Thompson, a member of the Capitals’ department of hockey operations, is filling in as an assistant coach with the Bears in Hershey. Thompson, the father of Buffalo Sabres star Tage Thompson, has previous experience as a head coach in the ECHL and the AHL, as well as an assistant coach in the NHL with the New York Islanders and the Anaheim Ducks.
