ARLINGTON, V.A. — For Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, seeing Clay Stevenson claimed off waivers by the Winnipeg Jets was bittersweet.
Sweet, because it means he'll get the NHL chance he's been working years toward, but mostly bitter, because it meant that the organization lost its No. 3 goaltender to the wire.
"(I'm) conflicted. I'm obviously very happy for him because he gets an opportunity now... he's earned that opportunity to play in the NHL, so I'm happy for him," Carbery said. "He's worked extremely hard inside of our organization, he played well in Hershey, showed at the end of last year he's right there."
Stevenson, who posted a .912 save percentage in 37 games with the AHL's Hershey Bears last season and went 3-1-0 with a .921 save percentage in four games up with the Capitals, was primarily skating with the main group at the condensed training camp as the team pondered its goaltending situation.
Washington didn't have space to begin the season with three goaltenders given the depth it added in the offseason, and ultimately, chose to stick with Charlie Lindgren as the backup to Logan Thompson and waive Stevenson to head to the Bears, knowing he likely may not make it through.
"Losing him on waivers, those are difficult decisions. It's hard. There's no perfect science to whether someone's going to get claimed or keeping someone," Carbery said.
For the Capitals though, keeping Lindgren was important, and they are confident that he will be able to bounce back after a rough showing in 2025-26.
"Chucky has been here, he's had success. Was last year an off year for him? No doubt. Do we need him to be better this year? Absolutely. Do we believe he can be? Yes we do," Carbery said. "We have confidence that the goaltender that I've seen, our goaltender that our organization, our fans have seen (that outplayed Darcy Kuemper and took the starting job in 2024), we're confident that Charlie Lindgren, that version is still there."
