The Washington Capitals capped off their preseason with a 5-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers, which, from afar, seemed meaningless. For the Capitals, though, it was a memorable upset win.
With the new CBA capping veteran players with 100-or-more NHL games of experience at two preseason appearances, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery had to dress a team full of prospects and AHL players. The most veteran player to suit up for Washington was starting goaltender Charlie Lindgren, who had played in 170 NHL games over his 10 seasons in the league. Only five Capitals players had played in the NHL at all. A graphic Monumental Sports Network posted during the third period told the fuller story: the Capitals had 430 games of NHL experience combined compared to the Flyers’ 6,874.
Despite that staggering experience gap, the Capitals handled being outshot 37 to 24 and beat the Flyers by four. Carbery could barely contain his giddiness after the game.
“I’m sure you guys have played in plenty of preseason games at all different levels,” Carbery said. “I’ve coached preseason games at all different levels. And usually, I probably could name you maybe two or three that I remember in my life. This preseason game, I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Spencer Carbery post-game speech
Carbery expanded on his remarks to the media after speaking to the team.
“I was proud of those guys,” Carbery said. “They played their asses off in a real difficult situation, on the road to begin with, against essentially Philly’s Opening Night lineup. To play the way they did and just to try and grind through that. Chucky was excellent. The PKs, the 8 minutes in the first period, to get through those unscathed. Felt like we got better as the game went on, too. Confidence grew amongst the group. There’s not many — I told the guys this — I’ve coached in a lot of different levels and a lot of preseason games and you don’t remember — this one you remember.
“You’ll go, ‘Remember when you went to Philly.’ These young kids, most of them, are going to the American Hockey League or junior beat Philly’s Opening Night lineup. That’s pretty impressive. They should be proud of themselves and feeling good about what they just put on display.”
The Capitals got goals from Andrew Cristall, Maxim Schafer, Ethen Frank, Theodor Niederbach, and Lynden Lakovic — only Frank has played in the NHL before — while Lindgren surrendered just one tally to the Flyers on the 33 shots he faced during his two periods of work.
“We just wanted to go out there and work hard,” Andrew Cristall said. “Pretty special what you can do when everyone strives for a common goal.”
Lindgren was singled out during Carbery’s locker room speech for his heroics and being “unbelievable” throughout.
“It is funny, no offense to our group in here because our group is freaking awesome tonight,” Lindgren sad. “But just before the game, it almost felt similar to what you saw, if you watch the Miracle movie where there’s pure silence in here. You could hear some tape. And gosh, we went out and put on a heck of a performance.
“Even Carbs post-game said that’s a preseason game none of us will ever to forget just with the lineups. They had their full time and we had pretty much no NHL guys and came out with the win.”
Carbery believed the prospects’ work behind the scenes was what made them so formidable. Not only were they motivated to prove they belonged against NHL stars like Trevor Zegras and Matvei Michkov, but they also found a high-level rhythm during their skates at training camp.
“You’re going to play a really tough team, but it’s a great opportunity to go play against NHL players and show what you’re capable of doing,” Carbery said. “The other thing that I give those guys a lot of credit (for), is we separated the groups at the beginning of training camp because the length of training camp, and so we were on the ice for both ice sessions, Group A, Group B, and this group, Group B, their practices were so intense, physical, the detail, the habits. Every day, us a staff, would debrief and go like ‘that practice was excellent.’ Every day. And they just did the drill. Everything you would want to see in a drill, they would do it. And so, you know, you talk about practice habits and ingrain in those things, and then you get to out to play in an NHL exhibition game and you get rewarded. Happy for the guys that played tonight.”
