"They also serve who only stand and wait."
-- John Milton
One could make an argument that
the most difficult shoes to fill on the defending Stanley Cup champion
Washington Capitals was backup goaltender.
For three consecutive seasons, Philipp Grubauer filled that role so
reliably that he and Braden Holtby were the only goaltenders the Caps
employed. In those three seasons,
Grubauer had a 36-25-6 record, a 2.25 goals against average (better than Holtby’s
2.39), a .923 save percentage (better than Holtby’s .918) and six shutouts
(half of Holtby’s total despite playing in less than half as many minutes,
4,240 to 10,589). He was so capable that
he was named the starting goaltender to open the Caps’ 2018 postseason. Grubauer played two games, watched the rest
from the bench, and then he was off to Colorado as an unrestricted free agent.
Enter Pheonix Copley. He is something of a rare breed in
Washington. Since 2005, the Caps have
drafted 11 goaltenders, four of whom started 659 of the 838 games played since
the first of them (Semyon Varlamov) played his first NHL game in December
2008. Copley, on the other hand, was an
undrafted free agent signed by the Caps in March 2014 after completing his
second season with the Michigan Tech Huskies in the NCAA. Sixteen months later, after 35 regular and
postseason games with South Carolina and Hershey in the minor league system, he
was traded to the St. Louis Blues with Troy Brouwer and a 2016 third round draft
pick for T.J. Oshie. Playing only two
games for the Blues, he made his way back to Washington as part of a
blockbuster deal at the 2017 trading deadline with the St. Louis that also
snared defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk.
After laboring with the Hershey
Bears for the remainder of the 2016-2017 season and for the full 2017-2018
season, he got his chance with the big club when Grubauer left. It took him three weeks to get his first win
with the Caps, in his third appearance, but he still had a solid start, going 9-2-1
(one no-decision), 2.61, .914, and his first NHL shutout over his first 13
games. He hit a skid at that point,
going 1-3-2, 3.82, .877, in six games before finishing his season 6-2-0, 2.74,
.908 in his last eight appearances.
Fearless’ Take… Despite the fact
that he started fewer games (24) this season than Philipp Grubauer started last
season (28) and appeared in fewer games overall (27) than did Grubauer (35),
Pheonix Copley finished the season with more wins (16) than Grubauer had last
season (15). Grubauer had better
underlying numbers (2.35 goals against average, .923 save percentage) than
Copley (2.90, .905), but a backup goalie has to give his team a chance to win
when he is spelling the number one netminder.
Copley did that, and his numbers resembled those of Braden Holtby in
2017-2018 (2.99, .907).
Cheerless’ Take… Those performance numbers are sort of
iffy. Looking at principal backups since
2007-2008, when the Caps reached the playoffs for the first time since the
rebuild, Pheonix Copley had the third-worst save percentage (.905, topping onl
Michal Neuvirth’s .903 in 2011-2012 and Justin Peters’ .881 in 2014-2015), and
his 2.90 goals against average was only better than Peters’ 3.25 in 2014-2015.
Odd Copley Fact… Pheonix Copley is
the first goaltender born in Alaska to reach the NHL. Ty Conklin, who played in 215 games from
2002-2012, was raised in Alaska but was born in Phoenix, Arizona. Odd irony, that.
Game to Remember… December 22nd at Ottawa
As the schedule moved toward the Christmas break, Pheonix
Copley, a native of North Pole, Alaska, was providing good, if not quite
outstanding backup work. In 11 appearances
heading into the last game before the break, he was 7-2-1, 2.93, .902, and he
had a save percentage over .900 only once in his most recent four
appearances. He got the call in Ottawa against
the Senators in that last game before the break, hardly surprising given that
eight of his first 11 appearances came in road games, and the Caps were playing
the back half of a back-to-back set of games.
The Caps staked Copley to an early lead, Brett Connolly
scoring just 92 seconds into the contest.
But Copley did his part to hold that lead, turning aside all 13 shots he
faced in the first period, including a flurry of stops late in the period before the Caps added another goal to take a 2-0 lead to the first
intermission. While Jakub Vrana and Matt
Niskanen were scoring goals less than five minutes apart mid-way through the
second period, Copley was keeping his own net clear of pucks, stopping 12 shots
in the middle period. Washington did not
score in the third period, but they did not have to. Copley stopped all 10 shots he faced to make
it 35-for-35 in posting his first NHL shutout in a 4-0 Capitals win.
Game to Forget… October
11th at New Jersey
First game with the new club, you want to make a good
impression. Pheonix Copley did that
early on against the New Jersey Devils in the Caps’ fourth game of the season,
stopping a point-blank one-timer from Pavel Zacha in the seventh minute of a
scoreless game. It would be the high
point of Copley’s game, though. Peppered
with 13 shots in the first period, he allowed two goals, leaving the Caps in a
hole out of which they would not dig. He
kept the Caps in at least a hopeful mood in stopping 11 of 12 shots in the
second period, but Copley withered under the barrage in the third, giving up
three goals on 11 shots in a 6-0 loss.
It was a goal total that the Devils would top only once over the rest of
the season, potting eight in an 8-5 win over the Chicago Blackhawks in January.
Postseason… Copley
did not log any minutes in the postseason.
Looking ahead… The Caps thought enough of Pheonix Copley’s
performance over his first 19 appearances through the end of January (10-5-3,
2.98, .903) to sign him to a three-year/$3.3 million contract extension in early February that carries through
the 2021-2022 season. No goaltender in
the Capitals system is on board for a longer period of time at the moment. Current number one netminder Braden Holtby is
entering the “walk year” of his current contract before unrestricted free
agency, and minor leaguer Vitek Vanecek is an unrestricted free agent at the
moment. Prospect and presumed number one
goalie in waiting Ilya Samsonov is signed through the 2020-2021 season on his
entry level contract. The Capitals, who
have made a habit of having options among their goaltenders in the last decade,
have a lot of moving parts at the position, but for the moment they have stability at the
backup spot in Copley as Samsonov continues his development.
In the end…
Pheonix Copley was the beneficiary
of good goal support; he was 7-4-0 in the 12 starts (one no-decision) in which
he allowed three or more goals. And, the
2018 portion of his season (9-2-1, 2.62, .914, with one shutout) was better
than the 2019 portion of his season (7-5-2, 3.17, .896). He has succeeded, if not replaced Philipp
Grubauer as the Caps’ backup goalie.
And, having only one year as the full-time backup, he has not yet
demonstrated that he can shoulder an extended load. His longest streak of consecutive starts this
season was four, back in November. He
won two of the first three in that set, posting a .922 save percentage, but he
faltered in the fourth start, allowing four goals on 22 shots, the last three
of them coming in a span of 75 seconds early in the second period in Montreal
on November 19th, ending his evening after 21:35 of work (the Caps
came back to win that game in overtime, 5-4).
While winning does count for
something, and Copley did his share of it as a backup, his performance suggests
that there are still improvements to be made. By the same token Copley suffers comparisons
with his predecessor in this role, Philipp Grubauer, who might have been the
best backup in the league over his last three seasons in Washington. He was almost certainly that in his last
season with the Caps. Copley has come a
long way from being an undrafted free agent who was traded, and then brought
back to the club. But there is still
some way to go to provide comfort to the club that he is up to the task over
the next three seasons.
Grade: B
