#idk how else to tag this for myself...

[grndgame]

Spencer Carbery and the art of trying to get a little bit better

[archived link to bypass the paywall; full article also under read more] really interesting feature on Carbery, his coaching philosophy, and his attention to players' individual development.

“Sometimes as pro coaches we get in this idea like: ‘This player is what he is. He is who he is. There’s nothing that can be done,’” Carbery said. “‘He can’t improve his shot. He can’t improve his skating. That’s it.’ But what if you can get him a little bit better? What if he gets 1 percent better? It’s going to help him, and then it’s going to help your team.”

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Some data points that could help illustrate why the Washington Capitals went from the last team into the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs to the top seed in the Eastern Conference in 2025: Aliaksei Protas went from six goals and 29 points to 30 goals and 66 points; Pierre-Luc Dubois improved from 16 goals and 40 points with Los Angeles to 20 goals and 66 points in his first season in Washington; and Connor McMichael jumped from 18 goals and 33 points to 26 and 57 in his third full NHL season.

Could that all be natural progression for players who are just 24, 26 and 24, respectively? Sure. But attend a single Capitals practice, and you’ll understand the roots of those individual jumps. On Monday — just a day before Washington opens its second-round playoff series against Carolina — there was Spencer Carbery, the Caps’ second-year coach, standing along the boards as none other than Alex Ovechkin took a knee in front of him, alone.

Carbery spoke and gestured. Ovechkin nodded and replied. Carbery coaches the team as a whole, and its success matters most. But more than any of the eight coaches in Ovechkin’s 20-year career, Carbery develops the individual — his skills, his habits, strengthening his strengths and minimizing his weaknesses — so that the team develops collectively. It is intentional. It is effective. It is his passion.

“If you ask me what I love about coaching, what’s your favorite part,” Carbery said last week in his office at the team’s training facility in Arlington, Virginia. “The games, the competition — that’s right up there. But the individual development part is my favorite part. To work one-on-one with a player, identify areas of his game that are really, really good that he can continue to get better at or areas that he has to improve and work on them — I love it. Absolutely love it.”

This might seem obvious. How could the team improve if the coach doesn’t get the most out of each individual? But it’s surprising how frequently coaches at the highest levels of sports have an idea of what they want their team to look like and try to shoehorn players into that vision. Carbery goes the other way.

“Sometimes as pro coaches we get in this idea like: ‘This player is what he is. He is who he is. There’s nothing that can be done,’” Carbery said. “‘He can’t improve his shot. He can’t improve his skating. That’s it.’

“But what if you can get him a little bit better? What if he gets 1 percent better? It’s going to help him, and then it’s going to help your team.”

This is all rooted in who Carbery is and how he grew up. As a self-described “marginal” minor league player, “I always wished a coach sat me down and told me, ‘Get better at X, Y and Z.’” But go back further still. Carbery’s father, Bryan, was a golf coach and swing instructor in Victoria, British Columbia, who mentored his son in that sport to the point that Spencer was winning junior tournaments and breaking par at 14.

“It was typical father-son stuff,” Carbery said. “He’d give me lessons, and I’d be like, ‘Leave me alone!’ But he was very simple with his instruction. It wasn’t like all these bells and whistles and do, like, 17 different things. It was like, ‘Just get through the ball.’ So I always remembered: Simple messaging.”

So he brought that into coaching hockey. Carbery’s path to his first NHL head coaching job was typical. But it was an atypical step he took along the way that further cemented what his approach would be when he got there. After six years with the Capitals’ affiliate in the ECHL — the first as an assistant, the last five as head coach — he made the somewhat unusual choice to take the top job with Saginaw in the Ontario Hockey League, the major junior circuit that culls the best talent in Canada.

“You’d get a player there in September, a 16-year-old, and he’d be like — unplayable,” Carbery said. “And then to see him five months later in January or February, it was like a different player. And you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, the amount of growth and development that this player had in five months of teaching, working, practicing, playing in games — all of the above — he just became so much better.’ So I’ve always remembered that, even at 25 or 22 or 26, there’s always room for growth.”

Carbery, 43 and a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year, spent only one year in the OHL, but he took the approach he developed there to his next stop as an assistant with the Boston Bruins’ top minor league affiliate in the American Hockey League. That led to an interview with the Capitals for the head job with the Hershey Bears of the AHL in 2018.

“When you interview coaches for the AHL, a lot of the discussion is talking about developing players,” said Capitals General Manager Chris Patrick, who was the Washington front-office member in charge of Hershey at the time. “One, you want to make sure you’re getting a guy that’s not just giving lip service to, ‘Yeah, yeah, I care about development,’ and then you get them, and all of a sudden it’s like: ‘Hey, these guys you gave me aren’t good. I want to win.’ …

“And you could tell with him, he was sincere. In the jobs he had in his background — the ECHL, major junior in Canada, assistant coach in the AHL — you have to make players better under your watch to be successful in those spots.”

The primary objective in any of those rungs of the ladder is to make players better so they can climb. In the NHL, the climb would seem over. Carbery is insistent that each player who comes into his office to review tape of his play is still evolving.

“I’ve had the gamut of coaches, right?” said defenseman John Carlson, a veteran of 16 years. “He does like to get one-on-one more than most coaches.”

“There’s some back-and-forth as to expectations and what he’s looking for,” center Lars Eller said. “And you can air how you see certain situations, so there’s clarity as far as expectations.”

Which is partly because Carbery understands that winning hockey games isn’t the only goal of a particular player. And that’s okay.

“All of us have individual objectives,” Carbery said. “… I’m going to ask you to do these certain things that are going to help us win games because that’s what it’s ultimately about.

“But here’s what we’re willing to do as a staff to try and help you become a better player and help you earn a new contract or become the greatest goal scorer ever or become an all-star or become a point-a-game player and first-line centerman like you want to be, Stromer,” referring to center Dylan Strome, “or become a top-six forward, Protas, and score 20 goals. That’s where it marries the individual development and the one-on-one goals with the growth of the team. They can coexist.”

They aren’t just coexisting. They’re pushing these Capitals — individually and collectively — to heights no one expected when the regular season began and now into the second round of the playoffs for the first time in seven years. That’s not because Spencer Carbery has a specific system. It’s because Spencer Carbery has a specific approach: 20 players being pushed to reach their maximum performance level can result in a season of surprising successes — one that’s still going strong.

[spinostarz]

i redrew that one terror poster for scene/bg/whatever practice

[sunnymainecoonx]

I know damn well I misunderstood the assignment but we roll, I'll understand it some day

It's killer and dust btw. If you couldn't tell. Which you probably couldn't.. forgor to say but shhh 🤫 Killers having a convo with himself..

..I kinda wanna change my url but idk to what

[walking-loather]

I've always been curious to know this about the people around me. Most people have been in severe pain, but in my experience few have had what they would say is their 10/10 experience. I guess it's just something I find fascinating, as I had my 10/10 experience quite young and I sometimes forget that not everyone has. In my opinion it changes your relationship with pain and how you engage with it afterwards. If you answered yes, feel free to elaborate on your circumstances in the tags!

(reblog for a bigger sample size etc)

[itsmeezra]

EDIT: now with alt versions

[introvertlifeee]

[theswedishpajas]

Gay thoughts

[starrcrossrose]

“This Is A Bad Idea”

“I Don’t Care”

Uhh HAPPY VALENTINES DAY *throws guys kissing at you and runs away*

If you wanna see more of them I have a LOT on my Patreon. Uhhhh yeah bYE —

[shantechni]

12 Shredder: puts Karai in a situation that gets her mutated

12 Shredder: Why would Splinter do this?

LEGIT:

Even Tiger Claw was like, "Ayo, u sure about this?" But Shredder really thought initiating a fight in the same room where someone is hanging from a rope for dear life wouldn't have any unintended consequences😭

[bixiaoshi]

Stay close to me, don’t go away — アリア《離れずにそばにいて》

happy belated birthday gaby (˶ > ₃ < ˶)♡ @kimdokjas

[kankri-vantas-alter]

Tw :gore , blood , horror

Idk what gif i like more honestly but i love this horror game its not. Boring at least. And i love. Story telling like. The one in the game -🕳️ folykl

Honestly this looks. Okay in my opinion but i don't know really. Might hate it later

Art is not mine all credits go to respective artists

[ulteri0rm0tives]

It's every iteration.

It's every iteration of V that will always find Johnny. Every iteration of V that Johnny grows to care about. It's every iteration of each other, in every universe, that will always find each other. They'll always become inseparable, tied together in unfathomable ways. Ways they could never truly unravel from each other in the end, no matter the end.

They'll always be destined for one another. No matter what face is worn. No matter what universe. No matter what, they're always meant to be. No matter what, the stars will always align for them, just to come crashing down from the sky.

[popeekisser]

introduction post again

looking for moots !!

hi!

you can call me angelyn/moon

i’m 17 (18 in a month)

she/her

𓇼𓏲* ✩‧₊˚𓏲 ࣪ ˖✩࿐࿔

my main interests are:

The Lorax

Captain Underpants

The Masudaverse (Popee the Performer, Funny pets, Mr Stain on Junk Alley etc.)

Trolls

It movie

Moral Orel

South Park

Bluey

i’m a big music lover (i literally listen to music all the time lmao)

-

i’m a selfshipper ^^

-

basic dni

reblog / like to be moots :3

[stupid-elf]

Growing up with strict, neurodivergent parents while neurodivergent yourself will have you as an adult acting like you've recently escaped the feywild. What are the tricky rules? Is everything accounted for? How do I ensure I don't accidentally step over the line into Impoliteness. You know the consequences aren't death and dismemberment but you might look down one day and find you've lost your shadow and all of your friends if you're not careful

[invinciblevalentine]

atp i would snort reeve tuesti fic like cocaine.

if anyone knows any fics that put reeve through the blender like “Son” by She_sees_in_the_dark or “Through Another’s Eyes” by CorsairOriginal—

i need to see that man under enough pressure to make a diamond crack. For my health.

[here-there-everyfuckenwhere]

Hmmmmmmm

Feel free to explain your answer in the tags and rub for sample size