Spencer Carbery brings track record of power-play success to Capitals
Carbery brings track record of power-play success to Caps originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Spencer Carbery is back in the Capitals’ organization, and this time he’s calling the shots. The Capitals named Carbery the 20th head coach in franchise history Tuesday, bringing the 41-year-old back into the fold just two years after he left his post as head coach of Washington’s AHL affiliate Hershey Bears for an assistant position with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Wherever Carbery has gone, success has followed. A coach who paid his dues in the ECHL and AHL, he holds the distinction of being one of only four bench bosses to win coach of the year honors in both leagues. Carbery led the Capitals’ ECHL South Carolina Stingrays to five straight playoff appearances from 2012-16 and coached Hershey through the heart of the pandemic while maintaining a .658 point percentage across three seasons.
Then, he joined the Maple Leafs’ staff overseeing the forwards and power-play unit. It was under Carbery when Toronto’s power play truly took off for the first time in the Auston Mathews era. The Maple Leafs led the NHL with a 27.3% power-play percentage in 2021-22 and ranked second this past season at 26%, both well above their rate of 20% the year before he arrived.
Carbery wasn’t afraid to get creative in tinkering with the Maple Leafs’ stagnant power play, rotating players across multiple positions in the 1-3-1 with lots of success and even experimenting with five-forward sets when star defenseman Morgan Rielly missed time. The results were a more dynamic scoring group that got the most out of Toronto’s skilled skaters.
In D.C., he’ll be tasked with jumpstarting a Capitals power-play unit that ranked among the bottom half of the NHL in power-play percentage each of the last two years. Washington already employs the most prolific power-play scorer of all time in Alex Ovechkin, so it will be up to Carbery to maximize his scoring ability as he enters his age-38 season.
The Capitals’ new head coach does already have experience working with one of their expected power-play contributors. Defenseman Rasmus Sandin saw plenty of minutes manning the point position for Carbery while with the Maple Leafs over the last two years. He took over that same spot with the Capitals after arriving at the trade deadline, filling in for the injured John Carlson while he worked his way back from a skull fracture and severed temporal artery.
Factor in the number of Hershey holdovers still in the Capitals’ organization and there will be plenty of familiar faces in the locker room when training kicks off in a couple of months. The Capitals still do have a full offseason ahead of them and there are several roster decisions yet to be made that could shape what their power-play personnel will look like.
With Carbery now at the helm, the power play will have a new look next season regardless of the players who end up filling out the roster.
