The Washington Capitals were idle again on Sunday night as the NHL saw the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs come to an end. The round’s final game saw the Winnipeg Jets complete a dramatic overtime comeback to send the St. Louis Blues to an early offseason.
Cole Perfetti tied the game for the Jets with 2.2 seconds remaining in the third period. Then, Adam Lowry scored the double overtime game-winning goal for the West’s top seed.
Despite there being no stakes for his team, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery tuned in to watch the instant classic and went through the highs and lows vicariously from his home. Carbery has yet to be involved in a Game 7 as a head coach at the NHL level, but went through a loss in one as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2022.
“Actually, it’s worse watching other games, for me, than it is coaching in the moment on the bench,” Carbery said Monday. “Because you just feel for the players and the staff. Even watching last night, you’re just gutted for those two teams, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, no.’ And someone has to lose. Same thing with Colorado-Dallas. This time of year, your whole season and everything that you work for is on the line, and one penalty call, one missed assignment, one shot at the net can decide eight months of hard work.”
Alex Ovechkin also took in the Game 7 madness. Ovechkin has played in a seven-game playoff series 12 separate times, including the first four series of his postseason career.
“Yeah, I watched yesterday, Winnipeg,” Ovechkin said. “Crazy. Crazy, yeah. This is the playoffs. One mistake can cost you everything.”
The last Game 7 that the Capitals played in was in 2019 against their second-round opposition this year, the Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes came back from a 2-0 and 3-2 series deficit to defeat the defending Stanley Cup champion Caps at Capital One Arena in double overtime of Game 7.
The Capitals are well aware of the challenge the Hurricanes present after splitting a hard-fought regular-season series with their division rivals. Both teams have been off for several days after defeating their first-round opponents in just five games. Carolina has played in two seven-game series since their win over the Caps in 2019.
“It’s a high-pressure but high-reward as well — when you end up on the right side of some of those scenarios, there’s no feeling like it this time of year, to win a series, win a game,” Carbery said. “But in the moment, once you’re on the bench, the preparation — are there nerves? Are you anxious about what’s to come? Maybe a little bit, but I get more wrapped up in the work of it. So it’s a lot of, ‘Okay, what do we need to do for practice? What’s preparation look like? What are our needs? How can we help our players?’ So a lot of it is focused on that.
“There’s not a lot of time to think big picture. But yeah, once you get into it, and there’s a lot of external things that are pressuring this, but once you’re in the games and that, it’s just about how we can get the best matchup or how I can do the best job possible to help our guys win a hockey game.”
After the Jets eliminated the Blues, the NHL released the schedule for all of the league’s second-round series. The Capitals and Hurricanes will square off in Game 1 of their series on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena.
