As unbelievable as it may seem, we are fast approaching the five-year anniversary of the Capitals’ Stanley Cup win. To celebrate, over the next two months we’re going to be taking you on a journey back in time to that magical run – reliving every game, five years to the day from when it was first played.
So strap in for the ups and downs, highs and lows, all leading up to a celebration of the greatest moment in franchise history.
Follow along with all of our “Five Years Ago Today…” recaps here.
The Series:
Eastern Conference Round 1 – Capitals (2) vs. Blue Jackets (7); Jackets lead, 2-1
[Caps All-Access Game 3]
The Setting:
April 19, 2018 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, OH
Game in a Nutshell:
In Game 3, the Caps needed resilience, timely scoring, and a little luck to get them back in the series. In Game 4, it was time for the big boys to step up if they wanted to even the series at two.
And step up they did.
Tom Wilson got the party started early for the Caps. After a flurry of shots and a scramble around the net sent the puck back out to the point, big #43 was waiting right there to pick it up and fire a bomb past Bobrovsky for the 1-0 lead.
That would be all the offense in the opening 20, with the teams trading two penalties apiece and the Caps putting 12 shots on Bobrovsky.
This 3-on-1 by the Caps… would not be one of those 12 shots. Because Caps.
Then, at close to the middle of the middle frame, Artemi Panarin was sent to the penalty box for slashing Evgeny Kuznetsov – and the Caps’ power play took the ice. Coming into Game 3, the Caps had already scored six times with the extra man, tied with the Sharks for the most of any team through their first three games.
Make it seven now, as an incredible keep-in by John Carlson set up the cycle. After not one, not two, but three rebound attempts, T.J. Oshie was able to put the puck home and give the Caps yet another two-goal lead.
That two-goal cushion would, for the first time, turn into a three-goal lead when none other than the captain himself, Alex Ovechkin, found himself alone in the slot and snapped a wrist shot over Bobrovsky’s glove to make it 3-0.
If the first three games of the series taught us anything, of course, it was that the Blue Jackets – while perhaps lacking in scoring talent – were nothing if not resilient, and less than five minutes after Ovechkin’s strike, the Jackets were back to their mischief when Boone Jenner tipped an Atkinson shot to end Holtby’s shutout.
Unlike in previous games, however, the Caps were not going to let go of this game – and that Jenner goal would be the only time we’d hear from the Jackets in this game, as Holtby and the team defense took over and shut things down. All that remained was an empty-netter by Evgeny Kuznetsov – wrapping up an eight-point night from the team’s top line – and the Caps had taken care of business, evening the series.
With that win, for the first time in the team’s history, the Caps had erased a 2-0 series deficit after dropping the first two games at home. A positive sign for things to come, perhaps?
Condensed Game:
Defining Moment:
They Said It:
“I don’t know why. Guys didn’t want to hold onto pucks, make plays. It seemed like we just … yeah.” – Cam Atkinson
“It’s safe to say that was our most complete game from top to bottom.” – T.J. Oshie
“It’s a series for a reason. We’re not going to get down from one game. We have to learn from this game. We have to know we have to be way better. Maybe it gives us a little kick in the rear to know that we have a real good opportunity in front of us to go back there. Home ice hasn’t been too nice to each team. We’ll try to get one back.” – Nick Foligno
“Our goal is to win a Stanley Cup, and that’s what we viewed as our best chance after losing the first two. We’ve been a confident group all year — I think that’s been our strongest asset — so I don’t think we’ve ever doubted ourselves.” – Braden Holtby
Finally, not sure what this was about but it seemed important to include it. You’re welcome:
Additional reading:
- Capitals-Blue Jackets series tied: Ovechkin proves prediction correct with help from Holtby, Oshie [WaPo]
- Nervous, tentative Blue Jackets lose grip on series with 4-1 loss to Capitals [The Athletic ($)]
- Capitals Beat Blue Jackets 4-1, Series Tied at Two Games [The Cannon]
- Capitals even series against Blue Jackets in Game 4 [NHL]
Guess who in that video at 6:59 in a CBJ uniform (on the right)?
When the Caps lost game 2 in OT, I quit on the team. They had just lost to the Penguins in back to back seasons. The core was getting too old. I was angry that DSP was in the lineup and not someone else (hindsight makes me lol and that aged poorly). I laid on my couch and listened to ‘The Sound of Silence’ (pathetic I know) and waited for the inevitable. After this game, I realized we were probably at least getting to round 2 again so we could make it a hat trick of loses to the Pens. 2018 was so glorious because I never believed until they actually won.
when I used to listen, nearly religiously, to baseball on AM radio one of the announcers used to constantly use a variation of the old adage that momentum only lasts as long as your most recent win.
A lot of people talk about game three being the game that set things in motion. And, looking back with all the knowledge of where the series and the playoffs eventually ended up, it certainly was. But, for me, it was this game that I think really set the stage for me being a believer. I think it is because of being burned by OT games all too often in the past. There was a part of me that after game three was still fearful that the win was a fluke. that the wi, that goal, was just an isolated incident. that the so-called momentum wouldn’t carry into game four because they would be mentally, if not physically, tired from playing out another OT. And, that’s because, in the past, that’s exactly what it was. Because everything, including finding those lucky wins, were a struggle for the Caps. That even when the luck of an overtime goal that actually did go our way wouldn’t carry forward to the next game.
Something changed though. This game looked different. This team looked different.
To me though it wasn’t that the momentum of the game three win carried forward. This was the first game that I really, truly noticed the team beginning to play differently. The Caps looked like they were playing a much different kind of defense that was capable of shutting down the opponent. And, that’s because they were. Three things seemed to be happening in this game that the Caps hadn’t owned the same way in the three games prior, and would carry forth through the rest of the playoff run:
First, they executed the wing-lock extraordinarily well in this game. It is a system that worked really well decades ago at dismantling opponent’s offenses and, as it turns out, was perfect in that moment for stopping some of the league’s featured trends around speed and zone transition. All of a sudden that supposedly fast Columbus team didn’t look so fleet footed and, because of how the Caps were lined up in that wing-lock formation it used the other team’s speed against them to turn stripped pucks into odd man rushes going the other way. That approach became a cornerstone of the Caps system throughout the rest of the playoffs.
Second, the game felt physically demanding and that was led by the Caps approach to engaging the body in a very precise and timely manner. They weren’t just running around laying hits in desperate fashion or for the sake of hitting, they were securing space and time by just being overtly physically punishing with engaging the opposition at every encounter, and taking advantage of every opportunity to follow through. This is what heavy hockey should look like and it worked at neutralizing speed, at disrupting tactical passing, at never giving the opponent time to breath because there was always a physical engagement to contend with at every encounter. It’s not the kind of play that works for 82+ games, but if you only need to employ it for a half dozen at a time, and as the Caps showed, was, very brutal to keep up with.
Finally, the Caps stars finally looked like they were shining. One of the long-running complaints was that the Caps weren’t getting the most out of their stars. Outside of Ovi, and Holtby, there is a pretty big drop off in prior years from the regular season to the playoffs in terms of production and it was accentuated by some of the Caps star players being unable to break through. Secondary scoring is nice, but first and foremost you need your stars to be stars in order to win. This time around it was the stars, the top six flourished in this game with Wilson, Oshie and Ovi scoring and that top line of Ovi-Kuzy-Wilson would completely run over some opponents some nights on the way to the Cup in a way that other teams just could not match up with and the Caps themselves had only seen, never had for themselves in past years.
It was seeing those three aspects in action for a full 60-minutes that helped sway me into believing this year could be different because they looked like a team with an identity, a team on a mission. They looked pretty unbreakable after looking very broken in the past, and although it was just one game, it proved to be true as those recurring themes from this dominating win showed up in so many of the games moving forward.
I needed this pick-me-up this morning! Such a great memory!