The Washington Capitals have added two experienced names to first-year head coach Spencer Carbery’s staff: former Calgary Flames assistant coach Kirk Muller and longtime Columbus Blue Jackets assistant Kenny McCudden.
Muller, 57, played in over 1,300 games during his NHL career and was a star two-way center for both the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils. He won the Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1993 and began his coaching career in Montreal in 2006. He spent a half-decade on the Canadiens’ bench as an assistant before trying his hand at head coaching with the Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL.
Muller lasted only 17 games with the Admirals before being promoted to NHL head coach with the Carolina Hurricanes, replacing Paul Maurice mid-season. While Muller didn’t quite succeed in Carolina, he returned to being an assistant coach and did quite well in that role. He coached two seasons with the St. Louis Blues before returning to Montreal, where he helped the Canadiens through a re-tooling process.
After he was fired from the Canadiens alongside Claude Julien, Muller moved to the Calgary Flames, where he joined the staff of Darryl Sutter. Sutter won the Jack Adams award for coach of the year in 2021-22 and led the Flames to an impressive regular season.
Although Sutter was fired earlier this summer and Muller departed as well, Muller’s work in both Calgary and Montreal lends to the impression that he is a capable, experienced assistant coach.
For a relatively inexperienced head coach like Carbery, who hasn’t yet run the bench of an NHL team, adding such an experienced name like Muller is an easy choice to understand. Same with McCudden, who was a longtime skills coach before joining Columbus alongside John Tortorella.
At Tortorella’s side, McCudden contributed to the most successful and winningest era of hockey in Blue Jackets history, including their famous 2019 upset of the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team coming off of a historically good regular season.
The Capitals are looking to make a push for one more Stanley Cup during what remains of Alex Ovechkin’s career, and have selected Carbery as the man to lead them there. Now, Carbery has added two high-level assistant coaches to help him begin what he likely hopes will be a long career as an NHL head coach.
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I’m not gonna predict the Capitals to win the Stanley Cup, but they may surprise some people. Carbery had success in the AHL, as a head coach, and if they’re healthy, and dump some dead weight, they could squeak into the playoffs. Anything can happen, once you get in.
Although I still think on some level that they are being tasked with trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip, I am totally willing to give these guys a chance to get this team to be hungry again. With the Bruins’ playoff aspirations in question for next year, that may be one less team to put ahead of them in the East. Still won’t be easy as Buffalo, Detroit and Ottawa seem poised to make strides this season. I still have questions about whether they can be a top 8 team in the East. They can certainly be better than they were last year, but top 8 better? I don’t know….
I have the same fears, but there is reason for hope. McMichael led Hershey in scoring under Carbery. A full year of Wilson, and contributions from Pacioretty, and other newcomers will add some scoring. The team may make another move this off season. Kuznetsov wants out.
And if not, it’s a great defenseman draft coming up. I’m always optimistic. A Top 5 pick might net them the next Miro Heiskanen in Aron Kiviharju.
Well, Kuznetsov could be happy here again as I believe his major issue was the system was too restrictive and he wanted more freedom offensively. He may get that now. Kuznetsov can still put up 80+ points, I believe that.
A full year of McMichael and even Alexeyev should tell us a lot about what they’re capable of in the NHL.
Pacioretty… eh, I’m not even expecting anything. He snapped his achilles tendon last season during an offseason workout and then snapped the same tendon again five games after returning. Not good. Not counting on him for anything. Whatever we get from him is a bonus if he’s even comfortable pushing that tendon hard enough to be himself again.