It's the most wonderful time of the year, and the most wonderful day of the week for Caps fans, as Wednesdays mean Spencer Carbery joins the Junks for a weekly breakdown!
Now, JP was having trouble saying "Limp Bizkit tickets" all morning, so he was a little worried about pronouncing Ivan Miroshnichenko's surname – but he did "pretty good" according to Carbs, just as Spencer is doing trying to navigate language barriers with international players in the NHL.
"It's extremely difficult, because everything is through a translator, and it's especially tough for a young player, because they are just trying to get acclimated with the league and the culture, and then you're throwing out Xs and Os stuff that they haven't been exposed to in their hockey career," Carbery said. "So it is a challenge, but that's where we try to make it as simple as possible for Miro and just have him go play, use the legs and let the work carry you through this. If you make some mistakes within our structure, that's okay; we're gonna help you fix those, but just make sure that your work and your puck play carries you in these first few games."
Miroshnichenko's story is an uplifting one, as the 19-year-old was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in March 2002, just months before he was eligible for the NHL Draft. However, treatment was successful and he went into full remission, the Caps selected him 20th overall that July, and after getting out of his KHL contract early to come stateside this year, he will, tonight, will be the first player from the 2022 Draft to make his NHL debut.
He's been working hard with AHL Hershey and head coach Todd Nelson, posting 15 points in 27 games as he got acclimated to the North American pro game, and he may not be in DC the rest of the season, but there was a plan in place for Miro.
"Being a young player that special, one that is new to the culture, is why we started him in the minors," Carbery said, "and I assume at some point he'll go back down there and play, but we wanted to get him a look in the NHL."
'Miro' will probably play with Evgeni Kuznetsov, just so he has a veteran and countryman to help him on the ice and get him acclimated, but again, the expectations are just acclimation.
"He's a very young player that's really important to the organization's future, and this isn't something where we expect him to come here and and carry our team or play a huge role," Carbery said. "We just wanna get him into the NHL and get him acclimated and see how that looks, and with Kuzi, I think we put him in the best position possible to set him up for some success."
All the way on the other side of the experience spectrum is Alex Ovechkin, who has more goals than all but one man in NHL history but is stuck on five this year – and after hearing Craig Laughlin tell the Junkies he thinks Ovi will be fine, so, too, does Carbs, especially on the power play, but there's a reason they've switched up some of their looks.
"Yeah, the way that teams defend Ovi sometimes there, there'll be a player that just goes and stands right next to him in his spot where he scored," Carbs said. "So essentially, when someone's standing there next to him, he has a 0% chance of getting a shot. So there's no way for us to get him the puck, and the teams pre-scout and play him in that way."
So why didn't teams just do that all the time in the past?
"Where it was different was because of Nick Backstrom and the ability of those four guys and how high of a level they executed at," Carbery said. "When teams did that in the past, we have been able to make teams pay for that with Oshie, Kuzi, and John Carlson up top, but that has been a challenge as teams have gotten better at defending Ovi but also helping on Oshie on the bumper, where he's in that kind of slot spot. Teams have gotten better at doing both of helping over on that 'Backstrom' side and also eliminating Ovi so he can't touch it over there on his one-timer side."
Take a listen to Coach Carbs' entire call-in, which also goes a little more in-depth on Ovi as a scorer and his frustration level with current events,
