The Washington Capitals will continue with the goalie rotation they employed at the end of the 2024-25 season.
Logan Thompson will be the team’s primary starter heading into the 2025-26 campaign, while — unless anything unforeseen happens regarding Clay Stevenson in the coming days — Charlie Lindgren will back him up and get spot starts.
Spencer Carbery revealed the news after the team’s training camp skate on Friday.
When asked if the team would play each goalie practically every other game, Carbery was quick to distance himself from the setup they used for a large chunk of last season.
“I’m not going to commit to that, no,” he said. “I think, you know, Logan, with the year that he had, has earned an opportunity to get a good crack at being our starting goalie.”
Thompson was one of the best goaltenders in the NHL last season, winning 31 of his 43 appearances in net. The netminder finished fourth in Vezina Trophy voting after posting a 2.49 goals against average, .910 save percentage, and two shutouts. The Calgary native helped push the Capitals to first place in the Eastern Conference, stopping 26 more goals than expected, per MoneyPuck.
Lindgren, while not posting numbers as impressive as he did in 2023-24, made huge saves when the Capitals needed him to and finished with a record of 20-14-3. Both right-handed catching goaltenders signed extensions during the season last year. Thompson received a six-year, $35.1 million deal while Lindgren put pen to paper on a three-year, $9 million contract.
“We feel great about Chuckie as well,” Carbery said. “So I think this will be a, you know, we’ll use both guys. We have two world-class goalies that we feel really, really good about. And shame on us if we don’t utilize both of them.”
