The Sheet Blog: How the Capitals unlocked Pierre-Luc Dubois

Thanks for checking out the maiden voyage of The Sheet Blog, a regular hockey roundup and complement to the daily show.

Washington head coach Spencer Carbery deserves a ton of praise for what he’s been able to achieve with the Capitals so far this season, and as much as the Alex Ovechkin/Wayne Gretzky chase has dominated headlines along with the Caps turnaround, perhaps Carbery’s most noteworthy achievement is unlocking the potential we’ve all seen and waited for in Pierre-Luc Dubois.

Trust me, I was skeptical too. but the early returns on the relationship have been good.

Check out this hustle play against the New Jersey Devils to stave off the icing and nail down a win for the Caps on Saturday:

Outstanding.

One of the coaches Dubois worked with in the off-season is Daily Faceoff teammate Jon Goyens (former Cape Breton Eagles bench boss) who focused on loose puck recoveries, wall work and entry patterns with the Caps power forward. Goyens says Dubois thinks the game at a very high level. He says ‘Duby is “a student of the game. He is driven to be better and in my experience is very coachable, open to discussions on areas to improve and tweak. In the summers, players should work on game skills that can be executed no matter a coach’s preferred schemes.”

Dubois was connected to Goyens through Detroit Red Wing Joe Veleno.

No panic in Edmonton

As I mentioned on Oilersnation Everyday with Tyler Yaremchuk, despite the handwringing from Edmonton Oilers fans, there is no panic right now in the organization. Internally the feeling is this is a team that historically hits their stride in January, so if the season doesn’t go off the road, don’t expect any significant moves anytime soon. Do they have things they’d like to do? Certainly, but overpaying isn’t one of them. And it sounds like that’s what the Oilers are faced with right now.

Teams generally prefer waiting for the trade deadline to sell off (unless a team is in panic mode and overpays) for a few reasons – they have a bigger marketplace and until then it’s a tough message to ticket holders, sponsors, and partners that you’re quitting on the season early.

Macklin Celebrini seizes control of Calder Trophy trace

Not taking anything away from Dustin Wolf, Lane Hutson or Matvei Michkov, but Macklin Celebrini is going to win the Calder Trophy in a walk. Only thing that could stop him is a hospital bracelet. If you live in the East. treat yourself to a Sharks game, Celebrini is a show just about every night.

Further, if you’re not watching the San Jose Sharks, you’re really missing out. San Jose picked up six of a possible eight points last week and could have swept all four games if it weren’t for one of the most bizarre games you’ll see all season: a 4-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators in which the Sharks limited Ottawa to 11 shots.

Kings’ goalie of the future arrives

Great to see Los Angeles Kings goalie Erik Portillo finally get his first NHL start last Friday against the Anaheim Ducks, a 2-1 victory with 28 saves. As a goalie, he’s highly competitive and is really active on pucks and as a person he’s highly intelligent. He attended the famous Ross School of Business at Michigan and has always cited education as important in his life. He forced the Buffalo Sabres’ hand to move him, feeling he was going to be blocked by Devon Levi and wouldn’t sign with the Swords. Portillo can be stubborn, but he understands his worth and isn’t afraid to go against hockey norms. You cannot faze this guy. There’s a lot to like here.

Wolverines ready to pounce on top prospects

Michigan Wolverines head coach Brandon Naurato’s interview with Mike Grinnell on Chiclets U got tongues wagging in the prospect/scouting community this past weekend.

Marketing 101.

A couple of things here, though.

Firstly, I don’t think Naurato is saying his team can compete with AHL squads, rather his point is the college hockey development path makes more sense for most.  Young players can see big minutes in college hockey while picking up valuable life skills rather than living on a bus and getting bashed around for six minutes a night with pros knocking on the NHL door.

As far as the recruiting piece of the interview, Naurato is not shy about selling his program. In his latest piece teammate Frank Seravalli mentioned rumors of Brampton Steelhead Porter Martone (potential 2025 first overall pick) and Gavin McKenna of the Medicine Hat Tigers (early favourite to go first in 2026) potentially joining Michigan next season. I suspect if it were up to Naurato, those would be more than just rumours. Michigan will be aggressive recruiting high end CHLers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw four high-end major junior players on his roster next year.

Also, it sounds like Boston University is interested in potential 2025 first overall pick Michael Misa of the Saginaw Spirit along with his brother Luke, a Calgary Flames prospect currently playing for the Brampton Steelheads.

Is the Jets’ honeymoon over?

Great catch by Troy Smith, former Kitchener Rangers head coach who now runs hockeyiq.ca, a website for coaches and players to learn more about hockey (he’s a great IG and X follow too) about teams figuring out the Winnipeg Jets. Have a peek at his latest on Twitter/X.

The #jets came out hot, but have struggled lately- 4-6 in their last ten games.

Why?

1 reason? The rest of the league has started (on breakouts) to by-pass their aggressively pinching D.

Here are 4 examples of that. #hkyiq #seetheice #maktheplay pic.twitter.com/IFE3u8iUUP

— Troy Smith (@dtroysmith) December 2, 2024

Matthew Schaefer builds case to go No. 1 in 2025

Interesting to see more and more draft watchers warm to the idea of Erie Otters defender Matthew Schaefer as the top player in this year’s crop, including our own prospect birddog Steven Ellis.

He was the top player at last week’s CHL/USA Prospect Challenge and wowed the crowd with his skating, creativity and bravery.

I recently caught up with Erie Otters assistant coach Ken Peroff, who handles the defense for the team. Here’s what he had to say about Schaeffer.

“He’s played 76 OHL games and four bad ones. Dominates every night. I think a sneaky thing he does well is use his athleticism to make himself bigger defensively, like go down to one knee to block a shot or pass lane, or get his stick flat etc. To a forward trying to make plays on him, he probably feels like [Zdeno] Chara.”

Could Ducks’ Lukas Dostal make history?

Since the NHL changed how the Vezina Trophy was decided in 1981-82 with GMs voting on the award, there hasn’t been a winner who wasn’t on a playoff team.  Could Lukas Dostal be the first?  If the Anaheim Ducks move John Gibson and hand the season workload to the Czech-born standout, Dostal could make the goalie award race an interesting one.

Further, I’ve always enjoyed Brian Burke’s thoughts on GM’s deciding the goalie of the year: “Why do they let us decide? Goalie is the one position we mess up on regularly.”

PWHL starts season in style

Great start to season two of the PWHL this weekend. Toronto’s Sarah Nurse scored a jailbreak goal (selfishly still one of my favourite moments in all of hockey) in front of just over 8,000 fans at Coca-Cola Coliseum.

Marie-Philip Poulin was denied on the league’s first-ever penalty shot by Emerance Maschmeyer:

But Poulin scored the shootout winner as Montreal Victoire edged the Ottawa Charge 3-2. Place Bell in Laval with just over 10,000 in attendance is the loudest rink in the league.

And first overall pick Sarah Filier recorded her first two assists as her New York Sirens edged the defending Walter Cup champions the Minnesota Frost. Alex Carpenter had a pair in that one as well. I really think Filier is going to rip this league apart and the Sirens should be a much better team than last season.

A slice of Red Wings history

I mentioned on Spittin’ Chiclets last week that the Detroit Red Wings had never fired a coach midseason since the Ilitch family bought the team in 1982 and was quickly reminded that Harry Neale was dismissed after 35 in the ’85-86 season and was replaced by Brad Park. Interesting note there: as part of Park’s compensation, Mike Ilitch awarded Park with two Little Caesars franchises in Boston.

Speaking of Ilitch: a great story former agent Bill Watters told me years ago around the Red Wings signing Warren Young, who was coming off a 40-goal season playing with Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The deal was considered hefty at the time, four years, $1.2 million, and afterwards the Wings owner intimated to Watters that he had “got him” on the deal. As Watters tried to convince Ilitch it was a fair deal for both sides and Young would be a solid player for the Detroit, the Wings owner stopped him and said “Billy, you know what I’ll do if the deal doesn’t work out for us?  I’ll raise the price of pizza.”

They always get their money back, don’t they?

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The Sheet is launching on December 2nd at 3 PM ET! Hosted by Jeff Marek, this brand-new daily show will be your go-to destination for the biggest hockey stories, trends, and insights across the NHL, PWHL, junior hockey, and more. Streaming live every weekday at 3 PM ET on the Daily Faceoff YouTube channel, The Sheet will feature exclusive interviews with top hockey figures, from executives to Olympic champions. Don’t miss the launch—subscribe to Daily Faceoff on YouTube and follow @TheSheetHockey on social media to stay up-to-date with everything happening in the world of hockey.