ARLINGTON, VA — Justin Sourdif has impressed Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery with his recent play, and it’s earned him a promotion.
Carbery told reporters that Sourdif will slot in at second-line center when the Caps face the New Jersey Devils on Saturday, citing his strong performance against the Florida Panthers earlier in the week. He’ll play alongside two of the team’s best wingers in Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas.
Facing his former Panthers for the first time since getting traded, Sourdif began Thursday’s game on the third line but moved to the top six late in the first period, scoring his second goal of the season in the third.
“I think early in the game, he was going,” Carbery said of Sourdif. “You could tell from his first shift. But credit to him, I see an opportunity to play him with those two guys. We needed a little bit of a spark. He goes up there and was fantastic.”
The Capitals lost that game 6-3, but the Protas-Sourdif-Wilson trio proved a bright spot. At five-on-five, the line held the Panthers shotless, out-chancing them 7-0 with a 3-0 advantage in high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick. Some of that success came from their deployments — they took no defensive-zone faceoffs in their 6:22 of five-on-five ice time — but Carbery liked what he saw.
“That line was dominant for the last, whatever they played, 35 minutes together,” he said. “So it’s a great step, a good opportunity.”
Since an abdominal and abductor injury knocked Pierre-Luc Dubois out of the lineup last month, the Capitals have failed to find a consistent setup for their middle six, especially as Connor McMichael struggles to replicate the high-scoring start he had last season.
The promotion marks a big jump for Sourdif, who has just 21 career NHL games under his belt. He’s put up solid numbers this fall: the Capitals have out-chanced opponents 92-66 and earned 55.62% of expected goals with him on the ice at five-on-five. But he’s struggled to finish on his chances, recording just two points (2g) on the season, and has thus far played almost exclusively bottom-six minutes.
Carbery noted that Sourdif “is still sort of figuring out what he’s going to be in the NHL long-term” and said that, between the team’s shaky middle six and Sourdif’s strong play in Florida, he felt that he deserved a chance further up the lineup.
“Sometimes it’s weird, and I’m not trying to foreshadow anything or predict anything where this goes, but it’s what players crave a lot, right? Young players?” Carbery said. “Is, ‘Just give me an opportunity, coach. Give me an opportunity to play power play, to play a game, to play top six. Give me an opportunity.’ And so part of it, it’s my job to give that opportunity when I see fit, or when it feels like, to me, it’s earned. And then their job is to run with that opportunity. And that’s what he did that night, so he’ll get another opportunity to run with that tonight as well.”
Carbery also contextualized Sourdif’s performance in Florida, as well as that of fellow rookie Ryan Leonard, within the Capitals’ larger development plans. Though he doesn’t expect every night to go as well for the team’s rookies, he hopes both players can build on that success as the season goes on.
“That’s what they’re trying to do, is progressively get better with experience,” he said. “So it’s hard to say. Should you expect that? Yeah, you should expect to see improvement in each individual. But I will say, the development trajectory and timeline is different for everybody. So some guys look really comfortable after 10 games, 50 games. Some guys it takes a little bit longer…So (between Sourdif and Leonard) there’s two very positive games, performances by two individuals that are just breaking into the league, and trying to find their footing, and trying to work every day to become really productive NHL players.
“And so those are positive steps. So what do you do after that? It doesn’t mean it’s going to look like that every night. I’m sure there’s going to be tough nights. You hope that they can go on a run of playing well. But then you take — as a coach, you take a lot of those things that they did in Florida, talk to them about them, show them them, ‘Here’s why you were successful, here’s what led to you generating good opportunities for yourself or for your teammates.’”
The Capitals will look to find a much-needed spark against the Devils on Saturday after going 2-6-1 in their last nine games. Puck drop is set for 7 pm at Capital One Arena.
