Alex Ovechkin had several Caps playoff records before this postseason even started, all of which were picked up in early exits. (Caps Outsider)
Up until the Caps won the Stanley Cup, their individual player records in the playoffs were relatively pathetic, because those records came in more losses than wins, thus severely cutting short what they could’ve been.
This year, the current crew broke away from the previous generation of Caps’ record holders in a far more meaningful way than scoring some goals in early exits.
Before the Ovechkin era, the Caps playoff records belonged to Dale Hunter (assists – 47 and points 72) and Peter Bondra (goals – 30). Even Scott Stevens had the team record in power play points (26). Adam Oates and Joe Juneau both had then a team record 17 points in a playoff year, when their squad made the Cup Finals in 1997-98. And who could forget John Druce‘s 14 goals in 15 games (while losing in the conference finals)?
Even before this season, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom beat many of these records… also during playoff years where the team played about .500 hockey.
This season, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Ovechkin, and Backstrom became 1-2-3 in playoff points in a season for the Caps, while Ovi passed Druce with 15 goals in a playoff year. The only other notable year in terms of personal performance is Ovechkin’s 21 points in 14 games back in 2008-09.
Now that the Caps have that Stanley Cup monkey off of their back, perhaps this will start a run of Conference Finals appearances at the very least (once uncharted territory). And then those team records will leave the 1974-2004 Caps in the dust.
