Next up on our Washington Capitals report card series is Pheonix Copley, who appeared in two games with the Capitals while spending most of the season with the Hershey Bears.
Copley went 0-1-0 in those two games with the Caps with a 3.11 goals against average and a .878 save percentage. He made 21 saves on 22 shots in a loss to the Edmonton Oilers on February 2nd and then 15 saves on 19 shots against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
With the Hershey Bears, Copley went 18-12-7 with a 2.38 goals against average and a .913 save percentage, leading them to the Calder Cup Playoffs where they got bounced by the Wilkes Barrie Scranton Penguins. Copley went 1-2-0 in the playoffs with a 2.29 goals against average and a .929 save percentage.
Copley will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov will be restricted free agents. This comes a tough decision for General Manager Brian MacLellan. It is likely the team will move on from Copley and then decide between Vanecek and Samsonov.
If Copley leaves, the Bears will have to turn to Zach Fucale who has shown he can play in both the NHL and AHL. The Caps will also likely go with a veteran netminder during free agency or a trade.
Copley just wasn’t getting the playing time in D.C. through no fault of his own. With the emergence of Ilya Samsonov the team opted to give him a role in the 2019-20 season even though Copley backed up Braden Holtby the previous year and did a pretty decent job at that.
Grade B: It wouldn’t be fair to grade Copley solely on those two dismal Caps games so this B comes from what he did with the Hershey Bears mostly. If this is indeed the end, he will always be remembered by Bears fans as a reliable goaltender.