The Capitals’ roster this season is providing a unique challenge for Spencer Carbery’s coaching staff, as the next generation of the organization’s forwards is beginning their ascent to the NHL.
The team’s core that helped the Caps finish atop the Eastern Conference last year — including Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson, Tom Wilson, Dylan Strome, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Nic Dowd, and Jakob Chychrun — is assimilating with prospects like Ryan Leonard, Hendrix Lapierre, Justin Sourdif, and Ethen Frank.
While the Capitals’ slow start has the team sitting outside of a playoff spot, it has had other ramifications as well. Carbery has had to lean more heavily on his veterans than the team’s youth at the start of the year. The sacrifice, at times, is fewer minutes for a first-round talent like Leonard, and the faster he develops, the better off the team will be in the long run.
“Leno is someone that I’m always in the back of my mind trying to get him in certain situations,” Carbery said Wednesday. “One, because he can excel in those situations, and he can score a goal in the shootout or use his skill set and provide quality minutes for us on the power play or playing in a top-six role. And then, the other part in the back of my mind is the experience part of it, which is important. Giving him the opportunity and knowing that there’s going to be some failure there.
“That’s part of being a young player in this league. He needs to go through those growing pains and fail in some of those circumstances, learn from it, and come back. And you hope that he learns from all those situations and comes back better prepared the next time he goes through it.”
Carbery’s comments come after Leonard played just 9:19 of ice time against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night, the lowest single-game total of his 25-game NHL career. The Capitals closely battled their division rival, not going up more than two goals until Ovechkin iced the game into an empty net with 31 seconds left in regulation.
Leonard, who grabbed an assist on Chychrun’s power play goal, was not the only young forward on the team impacted by the context of the game, as his two linemates, Sourdif and Lapierre, suffered more than he did. Sourdif, the center of the third line, played just 7:18 of the game, and Lapierre played just 6:28, neither getting any special teams time.
“Last night, him and his line don’t play as much as I would like,” Carbery said. “I think that’s a one-off from a standpoint of the circumstances of the game on the road, the special teams, us being in the spot we are, where we’re protecting a lead. I thought they were really unlucky with the goal against they get dinged with. It’s just unfortunate, they’re on the ice for it.”
To Leonard’s credit, he has made great use of the ice time he has received from Carbery this season, as among the 434 players in the league with at least 200 minutes of total ice time, Leonard ranks 111th in points per 60 minutes (2.34). He is placed ahead of names like Auston Matthews (2.32), Nikolaj Ehlers (2.31), Robert Thomas (2.29), Anze Kopitar (2.23), Matvei Michkov (2.16), and Artemi Panarin (2.03).
In 16 games this year, Leonard has recorded eight points (3g, 5a). He had just one point, an empty-net goal, in nine games last season.
Carbery elaborated further on how he balances giving Leonard and other young players those moments of experience versus relying heavily on his veterans to try to win games. The Capitals are playing exceptionally well analytically this season, but don’t yet have the record (8-7-1) that puts them in a playoff spot.
“It’s not an exact science,” Carbery said. “It’s why it’s hard in this league to have a plethora of young players when you’re expecting to win every night. It’s not an easy position to be thrust in, not only from the coaches trying to manage it and the minutes part of it but also for the players themselves because there’s an expectation that goes with the coaching staff and then also their teammates that you have to be able to make this play, this read, or decision in this moment because we need it to be done right in order to win the game.
“It’s a challenge, but I think our young guys are doing a good job with it, and it’s my job to sort of put them in positions to be successful and manage their minutes and make sure that I’m looking after the whole group and them individually. Then it’s on them to continue to just improve and learn and continue to get a little bit better with each and every game and each and every moment that they’re in, so that they earn that trust, and then they can be successful in those situations.”
Carbery and the Capitals will have to approach even more of the same situations in the coming years as players like Ovechkin, Carlson, and Dowd approach the end of their NHL careers. Highly-touted prospect names like Ivan Miroshnichenko, Cole Hutson, Ilya Protas, Andrew Cristall, and Lynden Lakovic will be looking to join Leonard in the big leagues very soon.