Washington Capitals Name Ray Bennett Assistant Coach

The Washington Capitals have named a replacement for Kirk Muller, their former assistant coach. Ray Bennett has been appointed to the position, the team announced Thursday. Bennett comes to Washington after just one season with the New York Islanders, where he and Patrick Roy (briefly followed by Peter DeBoer) coached the team to a 43-34-5 record.

Bennett also served as assistant coach to the Colorado Avalanche for eight seasons alongside Jared Bednar. He won the Stanley Cup with the team in 2022 and played a key role in their success across recent seasons. He brings 25 years of NHL coaching experience to the team, including service on the coaching staffs of the Los Angeles Kings and the St. Louis Blues.

Bennett’s Other Experience

Bennett has had success outside of the league as well. As high-performance/video manager for Hockey Canada, he won gold at the IIHF Women’s World Championship and silver at both the 1998 Winter Olympics and the IIHF World Junior Championship. He served as head coach of Red Deer College from 1995 to 1997.

Bennett has also held positions in the Western Hockey League as a scout with the Spokane Chiefs and an assistant general manager with the Moose Jaw Warriors. His tenure in the hockey world has also included being on staff with the World Junior Hockey Championship Association and the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association, per the NHL.

Bennett’s Role With the Capitals

Bennett joins head coach Spencer Carbery’s staff alongside assistant coaches Scott Allen and Patrick Wellar, assistant and skills coach Kenny McCudden, goaltending coach Scott Murray, assistant and video Brett Leonhardt, and video coach Emily Engel-Natzke. He rounds out a staff of talented individuals who have led the Capitals to success in recent seasons and are working to get the team back into prime shape.

His primary task will be to improve the team’s power play, which struggled last season. At just 17.8% effectiveness, they sat near the bottom of the rankings at 25th in the league. The poor-performing special teams units were a contributing factor to Washington missing the playoffs for the first time under Carbery’s leadership. They allowed 11 shorthanded goals this season and struggled to convert on the man advantage.

Bennett was hired by the Islanders last season to improve their power play as well, which he did to a small degree of success. Ultimately, though, their struggling man-advantage at the end of the season led them to finish with just a 16.5% power-play success rate. He had many seasons of success with the Avalanche, but was let go after the team converted just three power plays on 22 chances in the 2025 Playoffs.

The Capitals organization is taking a chance on a coach who has had varying degrees of success. While he has won championships with various hockey organizations, he has also had moments of struggle where his leadership was not clicking with his team. Hopefully, Bennett will be able to work with the Capitals’ top power play goal-scorers, such as Jakob Chychrun (eight), Tom Wilson (seven), and Dylan Strome (six), to both improve their performance and learn from their skills and techniques to build an effective power play for next season.

We may see some shuffling of power-play units, especially as the roster changes this offseason. The team’s top unit last season typically consisted of Chychrun, Wilson, Strome, Ryan Leonard, and Alex Ovechkin. Bennett will come in with fresh eyes and new ideas, as well as new players to work with and organize. Capitals fans can hope that he will achieve the same level of success he had during his time with the Avalanche.

We can trust that Carbery and the rest of the team’s leadership have keen judgement when it comes to hiring. For example, Murray has been wildly successful as Washington’s goaltending coach, shaping Logan Thompson into a top-of-the-league goaltender in just a handful of seasons. The organization was also unafraid to let go of Mitch Love this season after a personal scandal came to light, proving that character matters just as much as skills. Bennett should be highly beneficial to the team, and we will get to see the fruits of his labor in September with the start of training camp.