Former Coquitlam Express goalie Clay Stevenson is getting a taste of NHL life.
Stevenson, 26, has been called up by the Washington Capitals in time for the team’s final two games of the regular season.
Stevenson has toiled largely for the Capitals’ American Hockey League farm team, the Hershey Bears, since he signed a three-year contract extension worth $2.33 million midway through the 2023-24 season. He originally signed with the team as a free agent in 2022 following his sophomore campaign at Dartmouth College.
Stevenson’s played 33 games for the Bears this season, posting a 2.94 goals against average and two shutouts on his way to 18 wins, eight losses and four ties.
Stevenson, who’s originally from Drayton Valley, Alta., played three seasons with the Express before heading south. He won 30 of the 35 games he played in the 2019-20 season, leading the team to the top of the BC Hockey League’s regular season standings.
But Stevenson was unable to help Coquitlam in the subsequent playoffs because of an obscure NCAA rule that aged him out of junior hockey when he turned 21 on March 3, 2020, just days before the Express began its playoff run that was ultimately cut short by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stevenson’s success in his final year in Coquitlam came on the heels of a personal tragedy when his mom died by suicide while he was in training camp. He said his drive to be his best came from seeing all the sacrifices she’d made bringing him up as a single mom, including following him around Western Canada as he pursued his hockey dreams.
“Everything she did, she wanted to do the best of her capabilities,” Stevenson said. “That rubbed off on me.”
The Capitals have two more games remaining in the regular season, against the New York Islanders in New York on Tuesday, April 15 and in Pittsburgh against the Penguins two nights later.
In Washington, Stevenson will be the backup to the team’s regular second-string goalie, Charlie Lindgren, while starting goalie Logan Thompson continues recovering from an upper body injury.
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