Good luck to Spencer Carbery as the next coach of the Washington Capitals, because with this team trying to win and get younger, he'll need it, writes Adam Proteau.
As a result of their disappointing performance in the NHL’s 2022-23 regular season, the Washington Capitals changed their coaching staff, parting ways with veteran bench boss Peter Laviolette. They hired former Maple Leafs assistant coach Spencer Carbery on Tuesday to replace him. Carbery comes in highly regarded, but the challenges he faces in Washington are unique.
On the one hand, Carbery needs to be a teacher to the Capitals’ younger players. The Caps have been one of the oldest teams in the NHL in the past couple of seasons, and, as per CapFriendly, their current group of players is, on average, 30.2 years old.
In a young man’s league, this is not good news, and it will be intriguing to see what moves Washington GM Brian MacLellan makes this summer – does he plan on acquiring more veterans and trying to give cornerstone Caps Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and John Carlsson more support, or is he going to peel off some veterans in return for younger players?
Certainly, MacLellan’s trades in the past season pointed to his knowledge the Capitals have to get younger. His four trades dealt away veterans Lars Eller, Erik Gustafsson, Garnet Hathaway and Dmitry Orlov. In return, he brought back 23-year-old defenseman Rasmus Sandin, two second-round draft picks and two third-rounders over the course of the next three drafts. That’s the sign of a team that is acutely aware they have to embrace the future and do so right away.
But that won’t be easy. The Caps have 17 active players under contract for the upcoming season and only $7.3 million in cap space. Unless MacLellan can unload one or both of forwards Evgeny Kuznetsov (who carries a $7.8-million cap hit) and Anthony Mantha ($5.7 million), Washington will be in tough to add players who are difference-makers. And trading away one of their top players is even less likely.
If anyone from that group is going to be moved, it’s probably Wilson and his relatively attractive $5.17-million cap hit, but Wilson has a modified no-trade clause that allows him to veto any trade to seven teams of his choice. That might limit the number of bidders for Wilson, but his edgy physical style makes him a serious trade target for other teams.
So, Carbery will be in charge of a team that at once is trying to win now as well as one that is setting itself up for seasons down the road. He can’t jump all over the younger Capitals, but he needs to squeeze out more offense for the Caps and also better defense in front of starting goalie Darcy Kuemper. It’s a difficult balancing act for any coach, let alone one who is just starting his NHL coaching career.
At age 41, Carbery is the NHL’s youngest coach. He’s proven himself on the coaching front by running many teams in his 13-year coaching career, including the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit, the AHL’s Providence Bruins (as an assistant) and Hershey Bears, the latter of who was led to the top of the AHL – finishing in 2021 as the regular season’s best team.
His two years in Toronto groomed him as a creative mind on special teams and an effective communicator with his players. It’s readily apparent why MacLellan was impressed by Carbery and his resumé. But that doesn’t make his job any easier.
Indeed, Carbery joins the Capitals under immediate pressure to produce positive results. Caps fans have watched this team slowly erode in recent years, and this past season was an abject failure. They want a turnaround in a hurry, and they also want smart planning for the games well down the road. No more sacrificing the future in Washington. (Oh, and they also want to avoid the injury bug, which, if it does attack the roster, would underscore the lack of depth in the organization.)
In sum, they need all of their moving-part components to thrive. All the stars have to line up just right, and that’s usually not how it goes in hockey’s top league.
It’s entirely possible the Capitals miss the playoffs once again in 2023-24. The Metropolitan Division is one of the NHL’s more competitive divisions, and Metro teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Islanders and the Caps all will be battling for one or two lower-seed playoff spots. And the improved teams in the Atlantic next season could also push Washington out of a wild-card berth.
The pitfalls are massive. The stakes are high. But there is no real sense right now of what the Capitals will look like next year, as MacLellan still has many cards to play. A Capitals player today could be a Capitals opponent by October. The complementary element is very probably the place where we’ll see the most change in Washington, but at the moment, the team’s overall identity is still being defined.
Good luck to Carbery. He’ll need it.