The Washington Capitals lost 3-0 on Saturday night as the Tampa Bay Lightning handed them their second loss of the season, snapping a five-game winning streak. Much of the credit for Tampa’s win goes to the goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiywho made 31 saves in his shutout effort and earned First Star of the Game honors.

After the loss, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery had great respect for the opposing goaltender’s abilities, but admitted he would rather not face him.

“I’ll be happy if he leaves the league one day,” Carbery said with a laugh. “He’s just so big and he moves so well, just so talented. So it’s like, you have your hands full. And some nights, like last year, we got to him a little bit in some games, but tonight you can tell he was there.”

Vasilevskiy has had an illustrious career as the Lightning’s starting goaltender over nearly a decade, helping lead Tampa to back-to-back Stanley Cup victories in 2020 and 2021 and winning the Conn Smythe last year. He also won the Vezina Trophy in 2019 and led the league in wins five times.

Carbery had numerous opportunities to see Vasilevskiy up close, both during his time with the Capitals and during his two-year stint as an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs from 2021-23. In Carbery’s first year behind the bench in Toronto, Vasilevskiys threw bolts the Leafs out of the playoffs en route to Tampa’s third straight Cup Final, although the Leafs would seek revenge in 2023.

In those three seasons in the league, Carbery’s teams often managed to come out on top despite Vasilevskiy’s efforts at the net. The Leafs posted a 4-2-1 regular-season record against Vasilevskiy during Carbery’s tenure in Toronto – with a 7-5-1 playoff record – while the Caps played two of their three games against him in 2023-24 won.

The Capitals are one of only six teams Vasilevskiy has a losing record against in his career: He went 9-10-1 against Washington, with a .900 save percentage and 3.27 goals-against average. That wasn’t enough on Saturday, however, as Vasilevskiy averaged 2.67 expected goals, earning his first shutout against the Caps.

After the loss, Carbery admitted that the Caps struggled to create the scoring opportunities needed to beat one of the league’s best goalkeepers.

“I didn’t like it when we got into some of our scoring situations straight away. I was like, ‘Uh oh,'” he said. “The Protas breakaway wasn’t great. A couple that hit him right in the logo. So when you do that to an elite level goalkeeper and make him feel like he’s getting bigger and bigger in the net when you just pass it to him – we just, apart from Dubois’ shot, where he throws it into the goal from the pulse, great shot, it goes deep, I just didn’t think we would really threaten with a few good shots when we got into those situations.”

Although the Caps were unable to secure a win against Tampa this time around, Carbery remained positive about his team’s overall performance. With a record of 5-2-0, Washington is now in third place in the Metropolitan Division, and even against the Lightning, the Caps played well for the most part, although they didn’t finish.

“I thought we played a good game … and created a lot of good looks,” he said. “The time in the O-zone was there, he defended pretty well and checked pretty well most of the time. So just a question of the lack of a polished surface. We didn’t make the play that we needed anyone to make throughout the game. We just couldn’t make that last play, whether it was a two-on-one, whether it was cold against Vasilevskiy, whether it was a rebound. Because we had a chance to score, we just didn’t manage to make it last tonight, which will happen from time to time.

“But the process is good. If you came here and told me we were going to come here and overtake Tampa in their building, I would do that all day. Some nights they don’t care about you.”