Competing With Carbs

By: John Sparenberg

jsheynow@gmail.com

It's noontime on Friday downtown in Rhode Island's capital city of Providence. Most folks in the area who have put in a morning's worth of hard word are scurrying about and probably thinking about what they are going to have for lunch, what they can do to avoid working overtime, and what they are going to be doing to relax over the upcoming weekend.

However, that is definitely not the case (except for the lunch part) for the Hershey Bears' players who are mulling around their dressing room in the Dunkin' Donuts Center after the unofficial end of their workout. Many of them are busy catching up on social media on their electronic devices or texting friends or loved ones. Some are getting their sticks ready game, but all are in various stages of dress after working up a slight sweat in the short morning skate prior to that evening's encounter with the Providence Bruins. This game will kick off a stretch of three games in less than 44 hours, all to be contested away from the comfy confines of their home arena, the Giant Center.

There's feisty forward Liam O'Brien lingering about minus his jersey and shoulder pads on one end of the style spectrum, and on the other end, there's goaltender Vitek Vanecek, nattily attired in stylish threads and matching shoes, accessorized by a sharp-looking overcoat, looking like he could step right out onto the downtown streets around and blend right in with any other office worker.  But he wastes no time giving away the fact that he's a superstitious hockey player by giving the shush sign to the team broadcaster Zack Fisch when Fisch informs him that he will be playing in his 100th AHL game in a few hours as he takes the crease for his club.

Fast forward about a half hour after the morning workout has ended. Emerging from the "Dunk" ice surface and rounding the corner is a well-conditioned Bear attired in the teams practice sweats, a right curved stick in hand, and dripping with sweat after obviously putting in some overtime work. I greet him and shake hands and prepare to start my interview, and we get started with the inquisition.  However, we don't talk about this player’s scoring prowess, if he is playing injured, or something along those lines. Instead we talk about the teams amazing turnaround from a dismal start to the season, his career path through the low minors, a winding road that eventually brought him to Chocolatetown, and his compete level. But this man is not a player-he’s Hershey Bears head coach Spencer Carbery, a former player who was never drafted by an NHL club, but carved out four solid seasons of pro hockey, including the last two spent with the Bears' then and current ECHL affiliate, the South Carolina Stingrays, before dipping his toes in the coaching pool.

After retirement, Carbery immediately became an assistant with the Stingrays and joined their head coach, former Bear Cail MacLean, behind the bench for a season before succeeding him in the head man role when he accepted an AHL coaching offer.

"Coaching in the ECHL, you have a lot of different stuff that you are dealing with that comes with running the entire hockey operations,” said Carbery, who is only 29, when asked about the differences between being the head coach in the ECHL and AHL. "At this level, there are a lot more resources, and there is a significant difference in ability and skill among the players,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “In this league, there is a lot more learning. They are young players, or prospects, that have a bright future ahead of them, or maybe have come from being the best player in major junior or the best college player in the nation, and now coming to the American Hockey League where it’s a difficult league and it’s a definite learning process. Guys think that they can just come in score right away, and it’s just not the case. For me personally, I love the development component of it; it’s so critical, and it happens every single day in the AHL. It also happens in the ECHL, but I think it's more in the AHL than the ECHL, and I think it's because of the age of some of the players. We don't get any 18-19 year old kids in the ECHL, we don't get that kid fresh out of junior on an NHL contract who was drafted 10th overall." 

Carbery cruises into position at
practice in Providence.

In Hershey, Carbery took over for Troy Mann who guided the club to a playoff berth in each of his first three seasons as coach, but failed to do so in his fourth and what turned out to be his last season in that role. In accepting the bench boss job in Hershey, Carbery did so knowing that he was taking over a team that was in transition.

Departures from the previous season included four of the their top five point producers with Chris Bourque, Wayne Simpson, Tyler Graovac, and Dustin Gazley moving on to other organizations or overseas. Travis Boyd graduated to full-time NHL status with the Washington Capitals, leaving Riley Barber as the only member of that fine fivesome returning to Chocolatetown.

Additionally, captain Garrett Mitchell and grinder Zach Sill also headed overseas, and goaltender Pheonix Copley graduated to an NHL job with the Caps as their backup to former Bear Braden Holtby, thus creating a bigger challenge for Carbery and his staff.

"We knew it was going to be a work in progress with the new staff. All of the coaches were not in the organization or with the team the previous year and hadn't seen many of the players. On top of that, we had a ton of new players and a tremendous turnover in personnel even for our veteran type guys,” said Carbery.

He continued, "For a few of them, it was their first time in the organization, first time in Hershey, getting used to each other, getting used to the coaches. So it took some time for us to get on the same page with our expectations and how we were going to play, practice, and prepare."

However, even with the realization that there would be some early bumps in the road, Carbery and company couldn't have envisioned all of the potholes encountered, including a five game losing streak to start the season, and the club unable to post better than a .500 record until game forty-three.

 "We obviously had a tough start to the year, but we never thought that even though we weren’t winning games, that we weren’t right there. Just a couple of tweaks, a bounce here or a read there, and those losses could have turned into wins. I think that’s what happened; we were right there, and we got a little bit of momentum, and we put a few wins together, and all of a sudden that belief in our room it just snowballed,”said Carbery, whose team went on a 17-game run in which they did not suffer a regulation loss around the midpoint of the season, and now find themselves well positioned for a return to the post-season.

Former Stingrays Carbery and Wellar.

Patrick Wellar, one of Carbery's assistants, and also a  former teammate in South Carolina where they  captured the Kelly Cup in 2009, said he considers  himself fortunate to be working with his friend, and that he could see the coaching qualities in Carbery when they were teammates, calling his boss a "spark plug player who did whatever it took to make himself an asset to his team.”

"Our relationship has been really good; we were great friends as teammates and we had a mutual respect for each other. I’m still green in the coaching game, but he’s been great to work with and I've learned a lot from him,” said Wellar, who may have had the best seat in the house when the Rays clinched their 2009 championship in the last minute of the third period, but it's highly unlikely that he was seated, as he was in the penalty box due to an infraction he had committed. "He's been very patient with this young group, and I don’t think you could have a better guy for this group with the patience that he’s shown and helping these guys stay focused."    

Getting back to the sweat thing, the reason that Carbery was perspiring when he and I started chatting was that he had just finished a mock game that he typically plays with his assistants and a few of the players after practices. Fisch had warned me when I had asked him about interviewing Carbery, saying, "He’s not like a lot of other coaches that leave the ice after practice; he stays out there for a while and skates with them.” I took that statement rather lightly, thinking he would just be leisurely skating around the ice conversing with a player or two. Much to my surprise, I witnessed a fast paced, and at times, intense session involving the players, the coach, as well as Wellar, and the other assistant coach, longtime NHL player Mike Eastwood.  

Carbery sees these scrimmages as another way to blur the line between management and the players, but he also has ulterior motives to stay out and engage with his charges whenever possible.

Carbery and Eastwood converge on one of their charges.

"We have a fun time and you get to know the guys a little more.  You get to have some competition, and it just helps overall in connecting with our guys. I think in a subtle way it shows our younger players how to compete and work hard, and it helps to show them that even though they might have the most talent or be the fastest guy, when you want to win and compete, you can overcome that. The other thing I like to show is that even though I’m now 38 years old and retired and have lost a couple of steps, not just one, that I can still compete,” Carbery chuckled.

Eastwood, who played for multiple Stanley Cup Champion coaches during his 13-year pro career, as well as John Paddock, who coached the Bears to the Bears to the 1988 Calder Cup, says that some of his coaches did engage in post-practice sessions like Carbery does, although it's highly unlikely they did so with the same intensity level.

"That’s something that Spence does, and he competes like hell,” said Eastwood, breaking into a smile that made it very apparent that he knows that his boss uses these occasions as a way to both satisfy and on some level relive the intense, competitive spirit he had during his playing days. Eastwood continued, “But you know what, it’s a lot of fun and I think the players enjoy it, and all of the coaches enjoy it as well. Guys that aren’t playing get to put in some extra work and they get to have a little fun while they do it. But make no mistake about it-- he competes his butt off, and that translates to the players. They see that and feed off that, and it resonates with them. They understand that Spence knows how hard you have to work and the dedication that you need to put into your game to make it better.”

A prime example of a player who works hard and has worked hard for everything he's achieved thus far in his pro career is Bears defenseman Tyler Lewington. Lewington, a 7th round pick of the Caps in 2013 NHL Entry Draft, who started his professional career in the ECHL with the Stingrays playing for Carbery in the 2015-16 season, has scratched and clawed his way to becoming an AHL regular with the Bears.  He also earned his first NHL recall this past December, making a solid account of himself and also netting a goal during the two-game stint in Washington, and also earned a subsequent recall late in March, but did not see any action before being sent back to Hershey.

"I was so proud, coming from Charleston, South Carolina and then to play in the National Hockey League. I talked to Tyler when he was going up, and I said to Lewy how crazy is it for you and me to think that when you came to me as a wet behind the ears from Medicine Hat to Charleston SC, and now for it to come full circle,”  said Carbery, reminiscing with a smile.

"It's not always a smooth path to get to play in the NHL. There are a lot of times where you start to doubt and ask yourself if your chance is ever going to come after year after year. You talk about how much he has put in and how hard he has worked and bided his time. He even confided in me that at times he even doubted himself and wondered if he would ever get that chance. This just goes to show you it’s not always the path that you envision, and it doesn’t always happen overnight, but if you stick with it and do the right things and put the time and effort in, good things will happen for you."  

That and a healthy dose of sweat.

Johansen Adjusting Just Fine...Again

Adversity can come in many forms for a professional hockey player, and the challenge is to come out of the other side of those trying times stronger, and former Kelowna Rockets defenseman Lucas Johansen, for whom the sky is the limit as far as how high he can soar in his professional hockey career, taking them in stride, facing them down and coming out better on the other side has been a way of life throughout his career, and has continued this season in his first season in the pro ranks with the Hershey Bears.

Being the younger brother of NHL star Ryan Johansen, currently a member of the Nashville Predators, and a former 2010 first round draft pick, 4th overall, of the Columbus Blue Jackets via the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks, means that Lucas always has, and always will be, compared to his older brother.

Lucas and Ryan, 2016 NHL Entry Draft. All
photos courtesy russianmachineneverbreaks.com

"Growing up, he set a pretty high standard for me, which was tough adversity at first, but I learned how to deal with it and learned that him playing in the NHL had a lot of benefits for me," said Lucas, a first round draft pick himself, selected 28th overall by the Washington Capitals in the 2016 NHL Draft.

Lucas continued, "I took it in stride and did the best I could with the situation and hopefully one day we will eventually get to compete against each other at the top level and that’s exciting. He definitely taught me a lot over the years, and if we were compared it didn’t matter, he was all for me, and I was happy that he was there."

Johansen's Rockets career got off to a flaming start in the 2104-15 WHL season, when the "Kids from Kelowna", aided by Lucas' eight points and plus-20 rating, captured the WHL title, but ultimately fell just short of capturing the Memorial Cup, falling to the Oshawa Generals, coached by former Bears defenseman D.J. Smith in heartbreaking, overtime fashion.

A second season in Kelowna resulted in a second head coach for Johansen, former Bear Brad Ralph, but despite the coaching change he posted career highs in goals (10), assists (39), and points (49), and the Capitals took note and selected him later that summer in Buffalo in his first year of draft eligibility, with Ryan on hand for the festivities.

So, after solidifying himself as a standout WHL defenseman in his sophomore season by posting outstanding numbers, having been selected by the Caps, therefor knowing where his NHL future was going to be spent, one would think that maybe season three in the Orchard City would be a smooth, peachy ride, but a third coach in as many season awaited Johansen when former NHLer Jason Smith was hired to steer the Rockets' ship just two weeks after the draft. 

Smith, who captained the Edmonton Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers over the course of his NHL career which consisted of 15 seasons and over 1,000 games played, certainly could identify with Johansen, although thanks to being removed from the WHL for such a long period of time due to his extensive playing career as well as a two year stint as an assistant coach with the Ottawa Senators limited his exposure to both the league and the Port Moody, B.C. native.

But that's not to say that he didn't or couldn't identify with Johansen's situation. Like Johansen, Smith also played in the WHL, spending three seasons with the Regina Pats, like Johansen, he was also a defenseman, and finally he knew all about the pressures of being a first round draft pick who was selected after his second season in the WHL, having experienced the same situation in 1992 when the New Jersey Devils chose him.

"After I took the position I spent time watching video and asking questions about his game, and how he could be a factor for our team. Coming to a new spot and coming from pro hockey back to junior hockey I didn’t know a whole lot about the Rockets and all the players, but I spent time in the summer watching their games and talking to the assistant coaches who were here and still here to this day. I tried to learn as much as I could about him as a player, what positives he had in his game, and what things we might need to work on."

Smith continued, "From the start of the year he had a huge role on our team, whether it was defending, being on the power play, or being relied upon to be a puck mover. He also played against quality players on the opposition every night and was relied upon each night to not only defend, but to provide offense by being involved in the offensive zone and getting pucks to the net."

Fully capitalizing on the unique opportunity presented to him last season, Johansen excelled under the watchful eye of Smith, combining his abundance of natural talent with the wealth of experience and hockey knowledge that Smith possesses to nearly match his offensive totals from the previous season, while at the same time refining his defensive game, as evidenced by his doubling of his previous season's plus/minus rating.

"We had those three coaches in three years, which is also more adversity that people sometimes forget about, but my time there was awesome," said Johansen, reflecting fondly upon his career with the Rockets. "They have such a high standard there and there are so many great people throughout the organization who work so hard and strive to do their best to help the players move on, with Jason in particular. I remember the first practice that I had, he gave me a tip that I’ll always remember, and that told me right away that he had some good intel. It was a tip that only a 15-year NHL vet would have up his sleeve kind of thing.”

It takes an attentive student, one who is willing to learn, to make a teacher look good. The student has to possess excellent listening skills, with the ability to absorb the words and then take what he has heard from his mentor and apply them to excel and avoid the potholes that can be avoided by drawing upon the words and experiences that his mentor encountered, and that's a lesson that Smith learned early in his pro career, and it's one that he passed on to Johansen.

"There are certain things that are really important to allow yourself the opportunity to play at the highest level. I think me having the having the experience of being a player at the National League level, and going through all of the steps of developing along the way, when you speak to players and you’re trying to give them direction, I think they have an understanding that you’ve experienced it and obviously not one player is exactly the same, but the information that you give is about trying to get them to the next level and allow them to have the most success they can."

Smith continued, "I think anytime along the way when you’re a player, and I can speak to this, as I was lucky enough to have Larry Robinson in New Jersey when I first came into the league. The knowledge that I took in from him in my three, three and a half years with him was as much as I learned all the way coming up playing hockey. You can rely on people who have experience and have gone through the stages of being a player in that league. Lucas was very coachable and he wanted to get better and prove that he could be a real dominant player in our league."

On the hockey ladder, the step from the junior level to the professional level is only one rung up, but when a rookie, even one as highly touted as Johansen takes that step, there are guaranteed to be positive moments, and then those not so positive moments, and it didn't take long for Johansen to experience his first "minus moment".

In the Bears' season opener, he was on the ice for a goal against less than three minutes into the contest, and it didn't get any better as the game progressed as the rookie rearguard finished the contest with a minus-4 rating, and it also didn't get much better in the following four games, after which he found himself sporting a minus-8 rating, and then found himself out of the lineup in game six.

'We didn’t sit him based on play," said Hershey assistant coach Reid Cashman, who works with the club's rearguards. "It’s just that we had a lot of young defensemen and there was almost a rotation going on. Connor Hobbs (a former Regina Pat) sat out a game, and then some injuries happened."

Undoubtedly sitting out as a healthy scratch for the first time is a moment of awakening, there is potential for the player to sulk and spin further into a downward spiral, but if approached the right way, both by the coaching staff and the player, it can turn into a learning opportunity where the player gets to rest, watching the game from the vantage point of the press box, and exercise, and Johansen did both.

"It happens to everybody, right? For example, our captain was scratched this year too, and that’s no shot at him at all. I’m not going to let it get me down or let it bug me or anything. They were very clear on why it happening and I used it to get a great workout in, because for me it’s about gaining as much strength as I can. I was able to get in a good quality workout that day and it’s all part of the journey. So I had no problems with it."

Johansen has responded in a most positive way since sitting out, finding himself in the lineup every night, finding his name on the good side of the plus/minus column on most nights, and often finding his name in the goal scoring column, including his first pro goal, which was netted exactly one week after the benching.

"Lucas has continued to get better week in and week out. He works his butt off every day in practice, and he’s taken the initiative to continuously get better,", said Cashman. "He has great poise and a high hockey IQ, and he's found a level of urgency. What he's really good at is slowing the game down. We had to find a way to speed the game up so he could slow it down, if you know what I mean. He’s found that sense of urgency to play fast, and then let his natural instincts take over when there's time to make a play."

For the majority of the season, Johansen's defensive partner, or "right hand man", has been another former WHL alumnus, Tyler Lewington (Medicine Hat Tigers). To say that Lewington's style of play and Johansen's style of play are different would be a huge understatement.

Yet, despite their contrasting styles, with Lewington being a bruising, in your face contact type of defender who never met a collision that he didn't like, with an underrated offensive side, and a skating stride that can be characterized as something less than smooth, and Johansen being an elusive type of player, who describes himself as a "smooth skating defenseman who has good poise with the puck, who can produce offensively by either joining or leading the rush, and uses his stick well defensively", the distinctly different duo proved to be a near perfect pairing, but some recent roster moves have broken the pair up.

"We like that Lewie is a very stabilizing force for Lucas both on the ice and in between shifts.  They work well together and have good chemistry, but with Aaron Ness coming down that has changed some things, and we've moved him over on the right side with (Hubert) Labrie,", said Cashman, "With the way our lineup is now we have four lefties in it, and Lucas played right D all last year in juniors, so we feel very comfortable with him on the right side. But we try to make our D pairs as interchangeable as possible to set us up for later in the year, and a recent example of that was the game the other night when we down, and Lucas and Colby Williams (another former Regina Pat) got shifts together to try and create some offense."

"We have different styles of play for sure,” said Johansen, discussing his pairing with Lewington. "He’s definitely a lot more hard-nosed than I am and a lot more physical, and he can also make great plays. I think we complement each other pretty well. We were joking that he’s one of the vets on the team even though he’s only had two years at the pro level. He’s a great guy to play with and he’s also a great communicator, and that makes my life easy out there on the ice."

It's very easy to get consumed by the numbers, and forget the fact that young rookies like Johansen are in a mighty struggle as they take the first steps in the infancy of their professional careers.

If it wasn't enough that they are challenged almost on a daily basis by any number of factors, such as fatigue, their veteran teammates, a coach, or an intimidating foe in or near the rink, in an environment that they are familiar with, there is also that added factor that most of them, and Johansen is no exception, are also adjusting to a new life in a different environment, the kitchen, far away from home and family.

"It’s definitely different,” said Johansen, who recently turned 20, and celebrated the occasion by scoring a goal on the eve of his birthday. "Even when I was in Kelowna, I was only four and a half hour drive away from home, and now I’m almost on the Eastern seaboard. On the ice, you definitely notice that the speed is up and your time and space is limited, everything is a level up from the CHL. But the most change is off the ice, in terms of I’ve got to figure out how to cook now, which is easier said than done, he laughed. “But it’s fun, it’s a new process for me, a new challenge, and I’m enjoying it thus far."