The Washington Capitals are going right back to their hot hand.
Clay Stevenson will be in net against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night and start both games of the back-to-back. Head coach Spencer Carbery revealed the news during his brief pregame media availability.
“Clay will start tonight,” Carbery said. “I thought he looked good in the first start. I thought he looked solid in game one, and he looked solid again last night, made some big saves in some key moments. You think about keeping that game at 1-0, the save at the end of the first on the power play, on Horvat. Big save there, and then a few others. I’ve liked him in both starts.”
Stevenson has backstopped the Capitals in the last two wins of their current three-game win streak. He made 29 stops on 30 shots against the Islanders on Monday, saving 1.87 more goals than expected, per MoneyPuck. He is now 2-1 in three career NHL starts with a 2.97 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage.
The heavy workload on back-to-back days will not be unusual for Stevenson, as he has regularly done the same in the AHL for the Hershey Bears over the past three years. AHL teams often play three games in three nights, forcing goalies to get used to taking the net for two straight days, something NHL teams very rarely ask of their netminders.
Garin Bjorklund, Stevenson’s backup in Philadelphia, has prior NHL preseason experience but has yet to make his regular-season debut. In the AHL, Bjorklund, a 2020 sixth-round pick, has made only 13 career starts, and this season was meant to be his first full-time transition from the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays to Hershey.
The two young goalies are up with the Capitals after Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren were injured in back-to-back games last week. Thompson is expected to be back against the Nashville Predators on Thursday, but Lindgren will be out through the NHL’s break for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Philadelphia comes into Tuesday’s action having lost four games in a row and eight of their last 10. They have not played since last Saturday, so they will be well rested against a surging but likely tired Capitals team. The matchup is the first between the two Metropolitan Division rivals this season.
