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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