Alex Alexeyev is no longer a member of the Washington Capitals after signing a one-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this summer. Alexeyev recently spoke about departing the Caps with RG’s Daria Tuboltseva and mentioned being happy to get a new opportunity where he’ll likely play more than the eight games he saw this past year.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was the man who kept Alexeyev on the sidelines for the majority of the year, sticking with a basically unchanging six-man defense corps. Despite Carbery’s role in delivering him those many healthy scratches, Alexeyev had nothing but positive words to say about how hard his former bench boss works to win hockey games.
“He’s just obsessed with hockey,” Alexeyev told Tuboltseva. “Lives and breathes it. Hates to lose. He’ll rewatch a game ten times, study one play under a microscope. Even on the bench, he’s always on his tablet. After games, he’s already reviewing clips on the bus. By the time we’re in the locker room, he’s got ideas ready. Everything’s noted, organized. He’s 100% committed to the job.”
In two seasons under Carbery, Alexeyev got into 47 total games, which was more than the 33 games he played under Peter Laviolette the prior two seasons. Carbery also trusted Alexeyev as the next man up when Martin Fehervary’s 2024-25 season was ended prematurely due to injury, dressing Alexeyev for all 10 of the Capitals’ playoff games.
Carbery has always been confident in Alexeyev to fill in whenever called upon, praising the defender’s ability to jump into high-pressure situations without much of a warm-up.
“I would actually say it’s part of his mental makeup,” Carbery said last season. “When he comes into the lineup – he has a very clear understanding of what is impressive to us as coaches and to our management is getting out of games clean, breaking pucks out well, defending well, not getting beat in any one-on-one situation, be good with your regroup touches, your O-zone blue line touches, and get out of that hockey game.
“And he, sitting for a while, sitting for a while, doesn’t come in trying to save the world. He comes in and goes, I know exactly what I need to do for 16 to 18 minutes tonight.”
Alexeyev isn’t the only recent Capitals player to depart the club and then comment positively on Carbery. Evgeny Kuznetsov, who the Caps dealt to the Carolina Hurricanes at the 2024 trade deadline, praised Carbery’s communication skills in an interview last December.
“Carbery knows how to communicate details to players,” Kuznetsov said. “I’ve seen him give players the opportunity to make mistakes more than once, but in the end, they understood what was required of them. He has a huge amount of trust in the players.”
The Capitals are headed into their third season under Carbery, looking to improve upon their second-round elimination from the spring. The team is 91-53-20 since Carbery was hired, one of just 11 teams to cross the 200 standings point threshold across the last two seasons.