Spencer’s debut did little to fire up his team, as the Washington Capitals suffered a loud defeat against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Capital One Arena on Friday.
“Home opener, you know they’re going to start pretty hard,” Crosby said.
“I thought we did a good job of just weathering that. When ‘Geno’ got that first goal, it just kind of gave us a good boost. And then to follow it up with some power plays and see those go in, I think we just gained momentum from that.”
Carbery was hired as Capitals coach on May 30 to replace Peter Laviolette.
“It’s the worst-scripted start we possibly could have had in terms of just being disappointed, home ice,” Carbery said.
“Trying to generate some momentum from a season standpoint, and that certainly did not happen.”
The star of the match, Sidney Crosby scored twice and his colleague, Evgeni Malkin had a goal and three assists.
Tristan Jarry made 19 saves, Reilly Smith scored, and Jake Guentzel had two assists for the Penguins (1-1-0). Erik Karlsson had an assist for his first point with Pittsburgh.
The Penguins had lost its season opener in a six-goal thrilling match against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday.
“I don’t want to say a better effort, I just thought we played smarter tonight,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said.
“Just our play without the puck was a little bit more conscientious certainly than it was in Game 1, and I think that allows our guys to act on the talent that we have. So, we played hard tonight, but we also played smart.”
Malkin gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead at 4:07 of the second period. Karlsson kept an open puck in the offensive zone, poking it to Rickard Rakell along the boards.
Crosby made it 2-0 during a power play at 5:51, knocking in a loose puck in front while falling.
Crosby then made it 3-0 at 11:46 on a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle off a cross-ice pass from Malkin for another power-play goal.
Ovechkin finished with four shots on goal in 18:42 of ice time.
“I think we played well in the first period,” said Ovechkin, who is Washington’s captain. “Second one, we didn’t score. They scored, and that’s kind of the game.”
