After 37 years of futility, the Washington Capitals finally brought the Stanley Cup to Washington, DC. And in true Caps fashion, they did it in seven games. Let’s take a look back at that incredible victory.
After Washington came back from a 3-0 series deficit against Tampa Bay, the Caps moved on to the Eastern Conference Finals where they played the Boston Bruins. Keeping with the traditional hatred between these two teams, there was plenty of roughness.
It all started with head coach Bruce Boudreau shuffled the lineup. In his first ever NHL playoff game, on his first shift, Mathieu Perreault hopped off the bench and took out Zdeno Chara with a shoulder-to-knee hit. Chara needed to be helped off the ice and did not return in the series.
“He played well,” Boudreau said of Perreault, who finished with 25 seconds of ice time and a two-minute minor for interference.
With a 2-0 lead in the third period of Game 5, goaltender Michal Neuvirth said he was ‘feeling sick,’ and was pulled for backup Braden Holtby. With Tim Thomas on the bench for an extra attacker, Holtby stopped a long slap shot and flung the puck across the ice into the empty net, which put him in a small group of goaltenders who scored goals in the playoffs. Holtby then gave up two goals in the final seconds.
“He played well,” Boudreau said of Holtby. “Except at the end when he let in those two. Awful shots and he looked like he let them in on purpose.”
Holtby was credited with the game-winning goal.
In the second period of Game 7, to pump up the momentum, Marcus Johansson took it upon himself to drop the gloves against Brad Marchand. It was the shortest fight in Stanley Cup Playoffs history, in terms of height. After the game, Matt Hendricks broke out the bubbly. The league had to push the Finals back a day so that the locker room could fully finish drying.
In the Stanley Cup Final, the Caps took a 2-0 series lead against Vancouver before losing games three, four and five. However, they finished in style, eventually winning the Cup.
In Game two, Alexandre Burrows attempted to bite Alex Ovechkin. However, before Burrows could get his menacing chops around Ovechkin’s digits, Matt Bradley swooped in out of nowhere and saved his captain, thus earning the team’s hard hat.
“He played well,” Boudeau said of Bradley. “Especially when he punched the guy who was about to bite Ovi.”
The real excitement came once the Caps officially won the Cup. While lifting the coveted trophy over his head and lowering it for a kiss, Ovechkin knocked out another tooth. That’s when a new team tradition started. Just like the Canadians bury a Looney in the ice, the Caps buried Ovi’s tooth.
Joined-at-the-hip defensemen John Carlson and Karl Alzner shared their Cup-lifting experience with each other as they lifted it together and made out underneath.
Hours after the Cup had been awarded, Ovechkin was seen running down F Street holding the Stanley Cup over his head, skates still on his feet and, in typical Ovi fashion, just a small, blue, Verizon Center towel wrapped around his waist.
Even with celebrating Caps fans running past the White House, President Obama did not realize the Caps had won the Stanley Cup.
