The Washington Capitals have added a new face to their staff, and for Connor Leslie, the job carries a hometown twist.
On Monday, the Capitals announced Leslie as the team’s first full-time emergency backup goaltender, a role that comes with the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement. The league’s updated rules now require teams to carry a full-time emergency backup on staff instead of relying on someone sitting in the stands on game nights in case either team suddenly needs a goalie.
Leslie’s path to the position makes the move stand out even more. A graduate of the Washington Little Caps hockey program, he described the opportunity to NHL.com’s Mike Vogel as a “full circle moment.”
“It’s pretty surreal,” Leslie said. “Obviously, growing up playing eight years of Little Caps, it was one of those periods of my life that really established how much I loved hockey.
And just being around the culture, getting to look up to a lot of these Caps players who were at the rink when I was practicing and stuff like that was really cool. And now to get the chance to be around them and support them in whatever way I can this upcoming year is a really cool opportunity, and I’m just so blessed for that.”
Leslie, who is from Leesburg, Va., built his resume close to home before moving on to junior hockey with the NCDC’s Twin City Thunder and then Amherst College. At Amherst, he spent four seasons with the school’s NCAA D-III men’s program and finished with an 18-13-4 record, a 2.65 goals-against average, a .901 save percentage and three shutouts.
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The Capitals have filled a niche role that rarely gets much attention, naming Connor Leslie as their full-time emergency backup goalie under the NHLs new collective bargaining agreement rules. It is an unusual but increasingly relevant job in a league that now has clearer standards for emergency netminders, and Washington made its choice with an eye toward someone who already had familiarity with the organization.
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