Carbery's work ethic, experience help boost Capitals into East 2nd round vs. Hurricanes

WASHINGTON -- Spencer Carbery accepted the latest addition to his growing NHL resume with appreciation and modesty.

The Washington Capitals' 4-1 victory against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference First Round on Wednesday gave Carbery his first win of a Stanley Cup Playoff series as an NHL coach. It was also the Capitals' first postseason series victory since winning the Stanley Cup in 2018. While it was just the first step in what they hope will be a long postseason run, it was a significant one for them and their coach.

"I just couldn't be prouder," Carbery said. "I'm such a small part of what our guys did over the last couple weeks. It's pretty humbling and pretty gratifying to be able to win. It's so hard. It's so hard to win in this league. … It's so hard to win a playoff series."

Although Carbery downplayed his role, the Capitals advancing to face the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round further demonstrated the remarkable transformation they've made in his two seasons behind their bench and why he was named Friday as one of the finalists for the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year this season.

When Carbery was hired May 30, 2023, he was 41, the youngest coach in the NHL at the time, and took over a Washington team with an aging core that appeared headed for a rebuild after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

While management retooled the roster on the fly around the remaining Cup winners -- forwards Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson and Lars Eller and defenseman John Carlson -- Carbery guided Washington through that transition. Although the Capitals were sellers before the trade deadline for the second straight season, Carbery drove them to a playoff berth last season as the second wild card from the Eastern Conference before they were swept by the New York Rangers in the first round.

After an aggressive 2024 offseason in which Washington added seven players -- forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois, Andrew Mangiapane, Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh, defensemen Jakob Chychrun and Matt Roy and goalie Logan Thompson -- Carbery helped the newcomers integrate quickly and pushed the group to finish first in the Eastern Conference with 111 points (51-22-9) this season.

"Incredible in a short period of time," Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "He got them to play very hard, I thought, last year, came in and changed the intensity level and now it's systemized."

Throughout the process, Carbery skillfully managed the tricky balance between the team's focus on winning and the spotlight on Ovechkin's chase of Wayne Gretzky's NHL goal record, which he broke by scoring his 895th on April 6.

"It doesn't surprise me," Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. "I know everyone else would be surprised, but just the way he prepares his team, the way he gets the most out of his players. … ‘Ovi' and that whole record chase, that's not easy to get your team to play the right way when you have someone that's chasing an all-time record. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of media spotlight.

"So to get your team to continue to play the right way is very, very impressive."

Warsofsky isn't surprised because he learned under Carbery for three seasons (2013-16) as his assistant with South Carolina of the ECHL. Renowned for his tireless work ethic, Carbery sometimes would arrive at the rink before 5 a.m. to get ready for practice or a game -- after getting in his daily morning run.

"There was one time he told me he showed up at the rink at 2:30 in the morning," said Warsofsky, who supplanted Carbery as the youngest current coach in the NHL when the Sharks hired him at 36 on June 13, 2024. "He was on his laptop. He was working on the meeting for that day and getting film done. I couldn't believe he was there 2:30. That was probably the earliest I ever heard.

"You see it then and you see it at that level, and he hasn't changed one bit."

That dedication to his craft carried Carbery from his days as a physical forward who played professionally for four seasons in the Central Hockey League and ECHL through his steady climb up the coaching ladder that began with one season as an assistant with South Carolina in 2010. After that, he spent five seasons as South Carolina's head coach (2011-2016), a season as coach of Saginaw of the Ontario Hockey League (2016-17), a season as assistant with Providence of the American Hockey League (2017-18), three seasons as coach of the Capitals' AHL affiliate (2018-21) and two seasons as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs (2021-23) before getting his chance to run his own NHL bench with the Capitals.

Carbery won the John Brophy Award as ECHL coach of the year in 2014 and the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as AHL coach of the year in 2020-21. He could add a Jack Adams Award to his collection next and become the first to be voted coach of the year in the ECHL, AHL and NHL.

"Preseason game, regular-season game, playoff, winning a playoff series, I count my lucky stars every single day," Carbery said. "I do not take this job of being in this league for granted for a second. I started in the East Coast League 15 years ago as an assistant coach, so it's been a long journey.

"I'm the same exact person that I was in South Carolina. I'm a better coach."

Carbery has continued his education during the playoffs, applying what he learned from the sweep against the Rangers last season to help the Capitals defeat the Canadiens. When they seemed to get distracted by some of the after-the-whistle altercations during a 6-3 loss in Game 3 at Montreal's raucous Bell Centre, he got them to refocus and play with more discipline in winning the final two games of the series.

"He's fiery, but I think he's really good at getting his message across and not going over the top emotionally," Roy said. "He knows how to compose himself and, in that sense, it composes us and lets us focus on the job at hand."

The next job for Carbery will be matching wits with Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour and figuring out how to solve Carolina's relentless forecheck. Carbery undoubtedly was at the Capitals practice rink early again Thursday to dig into preparations for that series so the players will know what to expect when they resume practice Friday.

"With Spencer, just spreading confidence and being himself is helping a lot," defenseman Rasmus Sandin said. "I feel like he's the same type of guy all the time. He's just being himself and coaching the way he is as a guy. It reflects a lot on how he is as a person."

Finding a way past the Hurricanes will be Carbery's toughest challenge yet. He will lean on all his experiences, from a run to the Kelly Cup Finals with South Carolina in 2015 to what he's learning on the job with Washington.

"I think having gone through it last year, going through the series, you just take little tidbits of all sorts of different stuff -- preparation-wise, in-game management, adjustments -- and you're better for it," Carbery said. "It doesn't mean it's going to turn out just because you have experience. It doesn't mean all of a sudden, oh, now because someone has gone through it, they're automatically going to be more successful.

"No, but experience does help you as you move along."