Clay Stevenson played three seasons with the Coquitlam Express before heading south to Dartmouth College for two years.
Former Coquitlam Express goalie Clay Stevenson will make his NHL debut in the Washington Capitals final game of the regular season, Thursday, April 17, against the Pittsburgh Penguins..
Stevenson, 26, was called up by the Capitals on Monday.
Stevenson has toiled largely for Washington’s 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.”
Stevenson has pulled on a Capitals jersey in previous call ups, he has yet to get into a regular season game.
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