Following a 2025-26 season in which Washington's special teams delivered inconsistent results, Chris Patrick, the club's GM, declined to promise that the group of assistants surrounding Spencer Carbery would remain untouched.
Speaking on Monday, Patrick noted that the front office had only just finished its round of exit interviews with the players. He indicated that his next steps would be to sit down with Carbery, hold discussions with the assistant coaches, and figure out the direction from there.
Over the past campaign, three assistants worked alongside Carbery: Kirk Muller, Scott Allen, and Patrick Wellar. Muller and Allen alike had served under Carbery going back to the moment he was brought in before 2023-24, whereas Wellar was formally added to the bench during November, once Washington moved on from Mitch Love.
Now in his seventh year within the organization, Allen ran the penalty kill. After a sluggish opening stretch, that unit recovered to rank 14th leaguewide at 80.1 percent, faring particularly well in the wake of the Olympic pause, when it snuffed out 83.6 percent of opponents' man-advantages from February 25 forward.
Allen, a former Hershey Bears bench boss, was already part of the organization before Carbery took over, staying on with the club once Peter Laviolette lost his job in 2023. His first role under Carbery had come in Hershey, where he joined the staff to start the 2019-20 campaign.
Inheriting the duties Love left behind, Wellar took charge of the blue line. By the time the schedule wrapped, Washington's defense corps stood among the league's most productive offensive groups, placing third leaguewide in goals from the back end (55) along with a third-ranked 212 points.
The biggest driver of those figures, Jakob Chychrun, had only kind words for Wellar when he spoke with reporters during Breakdown Day.
Chychrun characterized Wellar as a sharp, deeply invested coach, noting how well things had gone for him at the minor-league level and how much his players adored him. According to the defenseman, everyone who has dealt with Wellar thinks the world of him; he credited the coach with a keen hockey intellect and called him approachable and simple to converse with. Chychrun said he anticipates a long, promising NHL future for Wellar and is eager to keep developing their bond.
Given how strongly his two colleagues performed, Muller looks like the likeliest candidate for a change this summer. Carolina's onetime bench boss oversaw a Washington man-advantage that ranked last leaguewide for the whole season, a unit that may answer for the Capitals' first postseason absence dating to Carbery's arrival.
Even with a few late personnel adjustments that nudged the output upward, the unit closed out ranked 25th across the NHL, converting at a 17.8 percent clip. Washington additionally yielded 11 shorthanded markers — among only a trio of clubs to surrender beyond 10 on the season — leaving its net man-advantage rate 29th overall at 13.3 percent.
Throughout the season, Carbery voiced his exasperation over the unit's lack of results. Yet pressed by reporters on the matter during March, he voiced complete faith in Muller and instead distributed the blame among everyone on the bench.
Back then, Carbery explained that the whole staff is collectively involved with the man-advantage and declined to spell out who handled which specific assignment. He stressed that Muller directs that group and does excellent work, insisting the struggles owed neither to insufficient effort nor to any reluctance from Muller to overturn every stone in search of answers. As the coach put it, everybody chips in and lends a hand wherever it seems warranted.
As a general practice, NHL franchises prefer to shake up their benches right as the summer begins, granting themselves extra runway to chase replacements and avoid being shut out of the most coveted candidates.