Spencer Carbery

After first win as NHL head coach, Spencer Carbery presented game puck by Alex Ovechkin

The Washington Capitals picked up their first win of the 2023-24 season on Monday night as they took down the Calgary Flames on home ice. While the two standings points are perhaps most important in the grand scheme of the campaign, the victory was also Spencer Carbery’s first ever as an NHL head coach.

The rookie bench boss has plenty of wins under his belt at both the ECHL and AHL pro levels but has only overseen wins in the NHL as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After the 3-2 shootout victory, Carbery and assistant coach Mitch Love were both presented game pucks by Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin to mark their inaugural wins at the top level.

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By Chris Cerullo 1 month ago

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Spencer Carbery calls Connor McMichael ‘the total package’ and believes that points will come if he keeps up good play

Connor McMichael played in his first Home Opener for the Washington Capitals on Friday. The 22-year-old forward impressed head coach Spencer Carbery through Training Camp and the preseason enough to earn a spot within the team’s top-six forward group, where he skated against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Carbery was asked after practice on Sunday about what he has seen change in McMichael’s game that has taken the former first-round pick to the next level. The rookie bench boss knows McMichael’s development path well as he was his bench boss with the Hershey Bears during the 2020-21 season, leading the team in goals (14) and points (27).

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By Chris Cerullo 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery suggests 4-0 loss to Pittsburgh Penguins ‘the worst scripted start we possibly could have had’

The Washington Capitals started their 2023-24 season on the wrong foot, dropping a decisive 4-0 loss at home Friday night. Even more frustratingly, that loss also came against the rival Pittsburgh Penguins, who fell to the Chicago Blackhawks just three nights earlier. After a strong but scoreless first period, the team surrendered three goals in under eight minutes during the second period before allowing a final tally late in the third.

Friday’s game marked not only the start of the season, but also the new era of NHL head coach for new bench boss Spencer Carbery. Neither Carbery nor the Capitals were pleased with the results as they broke down what happened postgame.

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By Katie Adler 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery expects a detailed, competitive Capitals team in his NHL head coaching debut

ARLINGTON, VA — Spencer Carbery is hours away from his debut as an NHL head coach as Opening Night approaches. After three weeks of Training Camp, the Capitals will kick off their season Friday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Capitals fans will have their first real chance to evaluate the team following a season that saw Washington miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Carbery broke down what sort of team, exactly, he hopes those fans will see. With a process-driven coaching style and a focus on pace, Carbery expects his team to coalesce under a firm identity.

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By Katie Adler 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery puts together first forward lines and defense pairings with Capitals’ 23-man roster

The NHL preseason is officially over as teams have just a handful of hours before they need to finalize their 23-man rosters. While puck drop on the new season begins Tuesday, the Washington Capitals must wait until Friday to get their campaign underway.

During his first regular-season practice with the team’s 23-man roster, new head coach Spencer Carbery debuted his new forward lines and defense pairings.

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By Chris Cerullo 2 months ago

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The Washington Capitals’ preseason said all the right things

The starting assumption for everyone about the 2023-24 Washington Capitals should be they’re gonna be bad. They missed the playoffs last season by 12 points with an aging roster, wracked by injury, while important players got sold at the trade deadline. Now they’re all one year older, playing in a tough division, at the end of an era, with major doubts around core players, and without any reason to assume they’ll improve.

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn predicts the Capitals will earn 81 standings points this season, one more than last year but still far from good enough to make the playoffs. “It stems from an aging core that hasn’t found any meaningful replacement over the last five seasons,” Luszczyszyn says, along with Shayna Goldman and Sean Gentille. “It’s the same guys, slowly getting worse and worse every season, with no one stepping up or stepping in.”

And yet, under Spencer Carbery and with a raft of encouraging offseason developments, there’s reason for hope in DC.

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By Peter Hassett 2 months ago

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Elite playmaker TJ Oshie suits up as a fourth-pairing defenseman at practice

In Very Important Capitals News, TJ Oshie morphed into TJ DefendTheNetshie during Wednesday’s Training Camp session.

The Capitals’ forward, who has scored the 13th most goals in franchise history, suited up as a fourth-pairing defenseman and took line rushes with Vincent Iorio at the beginning of practice.

Monumental Network’s Tarik El-Bashir reported the lines on X.

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By Ian Oland 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery believes Capitals left goaltenders out to dry on odd-man rushes last season

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery believes he may have found a hole in the Capitals game from last season that was causing the team’s netminders fits and hurting their stats. On the day that his number one backstop Darcy Kuemper is scheduled for his first preseason action, Carbery cited numbers that show the Caps ranked 28th in the league in terms of preventing odd-man rushes against.

Odd-man rushes are difficult for goaltenders to stop as they have to guess correctly on shot or pass from the oncoming forward with the puck and adjust accordingly in a split second. Hence, why rush chances are such dangerous scoring opportunities for the opposition and why many of them lead to goals against.

Carbery believes the Caps can cut down on those rush chances this season and make their netminders’ lives a little easier.

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By Chris Cerullo 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery explains why Matthew Phillips has earned an extended preseason look and could make the team

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery opened a bunch of eyes when he sent out his main practice group onto the ice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Monday morning. Skating on the team’s top line with Caps legends Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom was AHL All-Star Matthew Phillips.

Phillips, who is coming off a standout preseason performance against the Detroit Red Wings, was signed by the Caps to a one-year, $775,000 contract this past offseason. The small but offensively-gifted forward was expected to be in the running for one of the final roster spots up front but a promotion of this magnitude never seemed in the cards.

Carbery spoke to the media after the skate about what Phillips has done to earn an extended look during Training Camp and why he’s getting an opportunity most can only dream about.

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By Chris Cerullo 2 months ago

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Spencer Carbery’s ‘a traditionalist’, prefers wingers and defensemen playing on their strong sides

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery gave insight into one of his personal coaching beliefs on Saturday. The young bench boss, full of new ideas and energy, says he is, however, a traditionalist when it comes to one aspect of the game.

Carbery prefers his defensemen play on the side of the ice that directly correlates with their handedness. So, a right-handed player plays exclusively on the right of a pairing and a left-handed player plays exclusively on the left.

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By Chris Cerullo 2 months ago

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