ARLINGTON, VA — The Capitals announced Thursday that former NHL player Zenon Konopka has joined their coaching staff on a temporary basis this week. Per the team, Konopka had expressed an interest in working with players to improve individual skills, including faceoffs, leading to the invitation.
Konopka and Capitals skills coach Kenny McCudden led a session for the team’s non-game group on Thursday morning, with Konopka coaching players on faceoffs for part of the skate.
“We’ve just brought him in on a temporary basis, just to work on a few specific areas that we’ve looked at and he has an expertise in,” head coach Spencer Carbery said of Konopka. “So, brought him in for the next three days.”
Over parts of nine seasons in the NHL, Konopka played 346 games for seven teams. He is the most recent player in league history to record more than 300 penalty minutes in a season, doing so in 2010-11 while with the New York Islanders.
Konopka also played a total of 303 games in the AHL and was recently named part of the Syracuse Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2025 for his contributions to the Syracuse Crunch.
While Konopka wasn’t known for his offensive flash in the NHL — he scored only 12 goals in 346 career games — the forward found significant success at the faceoff dot. His career faceoff percentage of 59.33 ranks second in NHL history among players with 500 or more faceoffs, behind only Yanic Perreault.
Since retiring from professional hockey, Konopka has dipped his toe into coaching in recent years. He most recently served as head coach of the Caledonia Corvairs in the Greater Ontario Hockey League for the 2023-24 season.
The Capitals are still without assistant coach Mitch Love, who is on team-imposed leave pending the results of an NHL investigation. Hershey Bears assistant coach Patrick Wellar is serving as Washington’s temporary assistant coach in Love’s absence.
