Introducing the Washington Capitals Coaching Staff for 2024-2025

In the offseason, the stars of the show are the executives in the front office. They are making moves, signing players, looking to fill in the bench while all of us are counting down days to the next NHL Season. However, as the season starts the attention in the front office tends to fade and all attention will become focused on the team on the ice, and the staff on the bench and in the locker room. To better prepare us for our Capitals viewing this season, it is important to know who the staff are behind the bench and what they are looking to achieve this season. For the expectations, I will be projecting what I believe the front office will be looking to get out of the team this season.

HEAD COACH - SPENCER CARBERY 

Carbery is entering his 2nd season as the Washington Bench Boss. The young NHL head coach has already, in his short career, built a very impressive resume. As a player Carbery spent time in the AHL and played 181 games in the ECHL. At the end of his playing days he joined the staff behind the bench of the South Carolina Stingrays where he would quickly be named head coach. He coached in the ECHL for five seasons and won the coach of the year award during his tenure in the East Coast. His coaching career has included stops in the OHL as a head coach, AHL as an assistant, before coming back into the Capitals system as the head coach of the Hershey Bears. He was able to have continued success in Hershey where he again won coach of the year, this time in the AHL.

In 2021, Carbery joined the Maple Leafs organization as assistant coach focusing on the forwards and power play. Carbery, with weapons galore at the Maple Leafs, coached in his tenure some of the best power play units in the NHL. In 2021-2022 the Leafs power play was effective 27.27% of the time, and the subsequent year they recorded a 26.02% power play conversion rate. In 2022-2023, the Maple Leafs were highly effective in the offensive zone scoring 3.39 GPG and over the season generated 659 High Danger Scoring Chances. 

At the end of the 2023 season Capitals parted ways with Peter Laviolette after missing the 2023 postseason. The Capitals front office announced Spencer Carbery as their 20th Head Coach in franchise history on May 30th of 2023. Winning the job over a variety of candidates, rumored to include Capitals legend and Tampa Bay Assistant Coach Jeff Halpern. 

In Carbery’s one season with the Capitals, he led the team to an unlikely play-off appearance after a rather rocky start. The Capitals ended 2024 with a record of 40-31-11 for 91 points. The unlikely playoff participants were quickly ushered out of the playoffs by the President Trophy winning Rangers. However, Carbery’s first season as the head coach should be considered a great success. There were almost no believers in the hockey world that the Capitals would be playoff bound, but somehow the Capitals found a way. Furthermore, the Capitals improved their end result by 11 points from the previous season.

Entering his second season with the Capitals the young coach will have some increased expectations. First and foremost, the front office went out and did their job this summer. They have in no small way completely reshaped the team. It certainly feels as though the amount of changes made this summer is the beginning of the final chapter in the Ovechkin Era. With all these additions and changes, it will be up to Carbery to use the pieces given to him to build a great on ice product. After exceeding expectations last year, I believe it would be fair to say the expectations on Carbery for 2024-2025 will be to fight for one of the last of the 3 playoff spots in the metro and the bar would be to earn a wild card spot. I think it would be fair to say after all the moves done in the offseason, missing the postseason this year would not sit well with the front office. However, Eastern Conference Hockey remains highly competitive and to make the playoffs will no doubt be a difficult achievement.

ASSISTANT COACH - SCOTT ALLEN

Scott Allen joined the Capitals bench in 2022. Allen is a hockey lifer much like Carbery. The Massachusetts native spent 10 years as a pro and has seen action in five separate professional leagues. He wrapped up his playing days in 1997 and has since then been behind the bench. No stranger to the NHL, Washington is the fourth NHL organization for Allen having spent time with the Islanders, Panthers and Coyotes. Most recently, Allen was the head coach of the Hershey Bears in 2021-2022 succeeding Carbery, with whom Allen had worked under as Assistant Coach the two prior years. After Laviolette vacated the bench, Allen was rejoined with his former boss last year.

Allen, according to the Capitals, is the penalty kill special teams coach. Entering his third season in this role, Allen will have an evolved Capitals roster to build this year's penalty kill from. Last season, the Capitals killed opponents power plays with an efficiency of 78.97% which is just a shade below the league average of 79.02% according to Hockey reference. This unfortunately was a dip from the penalty kill's effectiveness in Allen’s freshmen season as the Assistant Coach in charge of this task.

Allen will face similar raised expectations this season with the updated roster as Carbery is facing. There are new defensive minded players on both sides of the blue line now to pad his penalty kill with-thinking Duhaime and Roy. Not to mention, the Capitals still have one of the most effective centers in the defensive zone in Nic Dowd. To my eyes ,the absolute minimum expectation is a penalty kill that performs above league average. Exceeding expectations is a penalty kill that kills around 81% of the time. Allen’s job this year will be finding the penalty killing group out of this reimagined roster that will perform the job at a higher level than the Capitals did last year.

ASSISTANT COACH - MITCH LOVE

Joining the organization in 2023, Mitch Love is the assistant coach with the Capitals who works with the Blueliners. Prior to being with the Capitals organization, Love was a professional defenseman for 6 years. In his playing days he was not afraid to drop the gloves and stir the pot. He hung up the skates in 2011 and exchanged them for a suit. He spent a decade in the WHL coaching and made appearances on the bench of two Canadian World Junior teams in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. In 2021, he made the leap from Juniors to the AHL, becoming the head coach of the Calgary Affiliate team in the AHL. In his first two seasons in the AHL he won back-to-back Pieri Memorial Awards for best coach in the AHL. After his second Pieri Award in two seasons, the Capitals were able to recruit the young coach ahead of the 2023-2024 season. 

In Love's first season with the Capitals, he chiefed a defensive core anchored by veteran defenseman John Carlson, but featured a rotation of players including Edmundson, van Riemsdyk, Fehervary, Sandin, Alexeyev, Bear and more. The average games played by defensemen who featured in the line up last year was 41 games. A total of 12 players saw ice time on defense in 2023-2024. The Capitals surrendered 637 high danger chances in 2023-2024 and generally struggled to find consistency defensively at 5v5. 

` This season, the Capitals will be looking to have Love find his footing with the blue liners. The front office bolstered the blue line in the offseason, picking up the talented Jacob Chychrun and the American born defender Matt Roy. Love’s top six is shaping up to look like Carlson, Chychrun, van Riemsdyk, Sandin, Roy and Fehervary with the seventh man being either Alexeyev or McIlrath. For Love, I want his expectation to be finding a great fit for the talent of Chychrun and helping Sandin take another step forward in his promising play. In terms of stats, I am sure they are expecting this group to take a big step forward in limiting high danger chances at 5v5. Overall, finding greater consistency at the blue line should be Love's Goal for the year ahead.

ASSISTANT COACH - KIRK MULLER

Muller joined the Capitals organization alongside Carbery and Love in 2023. As a player Muller is a Stanley Cup Champion and boasts the top playing career of any of the Capitals coaching staff. Muller played in the NHL from 1984 to 2003 and recorded 959 points with 6 different teams. In his day, he finished 6th in Calder voting and appeared 3 times in Selke voting. After retiring in 2003, Muller joined the coaching circuit and has not looked back. His time as a coach includes being the head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes from 2011-2014. Before joining the Capitals, Muller was an Associate Coach with the Calgary Flames.

Muller took over the Capitals power play from the much maligned Blaine Forsythe in 2023. However, under Muller the power play continued to struggle last season. The power play posted a 20.61% conversion rate. The power play went on the only go 2 for 17 in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. During the season, the power play continued to utilize what has now become the cliche Capitals’ slingshot break in from the Forsythe days. 

In the coming year, the powerplay will need to improve to make the Capitals a bonafide playoff team. I would like to see Muller find some new refreshed looks for a powerplay that has now been middling for a number of years. Ideally, with some new personnel on the powerplay, a success rate of 23% and above would be a substantial improvement from a power play that had ranked 18th last year. If Muller can craft a powerplay that cracks the top 16 teams that would meet expectations given the roster the front office has built for him. Exceeding expectations would be a power play ranked 12th or higher. 

ROUNDING OUT THE REST

Scott Murray is the longtime Goalie coach of the Washington Capitals having joined the club in 2017-18. He has been through many different goalies with the Capitals at this point. He will have his hands full this year as the Capitals are entering 2024-2025 with no defined starter in the goalie room. The hope, for his end of the rink, is to have Thompson continue his development as a young goalie and to have Lindgren solidify himself in the NHL as a late bloomer. 

Brett Leonhardt is Assistant and Video Coach who has been with the team since 2012. Currently the longest tenured member of the coaching staff with this team. He is in charge of pre-scouting opponents and developing game plans.  

Emily Engel-Natzke joins Leonhardt in the video room for her third season as Video Coach with the Capitals. Previously, she had spent time as a coach with the Capitals AHL affiliate the Hershey Bears. Her role according to the Capitals is pre-game scouting, in-game and post game video breakdown.  

Finally, Kenny McCudden is an Assistant and Skills Coach with the Capitals. He is entering his second season with the Capitals. Previously, he was with the Blue Jackets in the NHL and has been a professional skills coach since 1994. Being the skills coach, there is a special amount of player development riding on his shoulders. His focus for this year should be making true NHLers out of McMichael, Lappiere and Cristall (if Cristall makes the NHL roster).

FINAL THOUGHTS

As laid out there are many different roles in this Capitals team. Over the course of the season, their impact will be apparent in big ways and small. Most obvious to viewers will be special teams. However, by seeing how these players evolve and hopefully succeed one can note that it takes a village and that this coaching staff is doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. They are in a cut throat business that takes true passion. I am wishing them continued success in their career and I hope that they can really make something out of this year's roster. 

Article made possible with help from the Washington Capitals website, Hockey Reference and Elite Prospects. Cover image, John McCreary NHLI via Getty Images.