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 2 – Capitals (1) vs. Penguins (2); Series tied 1-1
The Setting:
May 1, 2018 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA
Game in a Nutshell:
Having salvaged the home slate of the series, the Caps headed to Pittsburgh looking to take their first lead. Their journey just got a little tougher, though, because of a familiar face making his return to the lineup.
Malkin had sat out the first two games of the series after having injured himself in the first round…er, while trying to slewfoot someone.
Anyway.
He was back, and had a history of putting up points against the Capitals, so his return was worth watching – as was the impact it would have on the Penguins’ lineup. This was not going to be an easy one for the Caps.
It started off relatively quietly, with the teams trading multiple penalties – two for the Caps, three for Pittsburgh – in the opening frame but not doing much in terms of offense. In fact, the Caps finished the first period with just seven shots on goal… although a couple of them came very close to beating Matt Murray.
The penalty parade carried over from the first period into the second, and with Malkin in the penalty box – lol – John Carlson did John Carlson things and fired a shot from the point into the back of the net. 1-0 Caps.
The Caps tilted the ice for a bit after that first strike, but about five minutes later, Jake Guentzel tipped a Justin Schultz shot past Holtby to even things up at one. Just over two minutes later, it was suddenly 2-1 Penguins courtesy of a Patric Hornqvist power-play goal from right in front of the net. With that go-ahead tally, Pittsburgh snapped a run of 0-for-16 on the power play (and a perfect 24-for-24 PK for the Caps). Womp womp.
Then, well… things started to unravel a bit.
If you’ll remember, back in Game 2, Tom Wilson collided with both Brian Dumoulin and Alex Ovechkin, a play that had many people (wrongly) up in arms but which (correctly) resulted in no supplemental discipline.
This time around, his actions and associated innocence were…a little less clear cut. Observe.
Final look at the Wilson hit pic.twitter.com/s1YRer8VWY
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 2, 2018
So yeah. Not great. Aston-Reese would leave the game and later be diagnosed with a concussion and a broken jaw, and Wilson, while not getting penalized in the moment, would be hit with a three-game suspension in the aftermath.
Back to the action at hand, though, where the Caps were about to tie things up courtesy of a ridiculous backhand pass from T.J. Oshie to find none other than Chandler Stephenson, all alone in front of the Penguins net. He made no mistake about it, tying the game up at 2.
That score would hold for a bit thanks in large part to Matt Niskanen, who was in exactly the right place at the right time to make this save:
Alas, that save, while big, wouldn’t be able to hold off the Penguins for much longer. With the teams skating four-on-four (the second period was an even longer parade to the penalty box for both squads), Guentzel would make some fancy moves while being surrounded by three Caps and find Sidney Crosby in the right circle. And because Sidney Crosby also enjoys scoring on the Caps, he did just that, restoring the Penguins’ one-goal lead.
On to the third period, where the Caps would get back even – and once again Matt Niskanen would play a huge role in biting the hand that used to feed him, this time with a goal of his own.
With the minutes ticking away in regulation, the score knotted at two apiece, it seemed these two teams were destined for the first overtime game of these series.
But after being hemmed into their own zone for over a minute, the Caps somehow managed to break out on a two-on-one with the exact guys you want to see on a two-on-one (even with tired legs): Nick Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin. Backstrom waits until the last (perfect) second to send the puck across to Ovechkin, who initially pings the shot off the post but follows up and makes sure to bat the puck home.
And just like that, with about a minute left to go, the Caps were up 4-3.
Sidebar, what is the funniest part of this clip: pissypants Letang swinging his stick purposefully at Ovechkin, trying to trip him up, or the commitment by the first few rows of the arena to ALL flip Ovechkin off while he celebrated, unfazed? Tough call!
The Penguins would pull Murray shortly after, looking for the equalizer, but the Caps held on to take their first series lead, two games to one.
Condensed Game:
Defining Moment:
They Said It:
“It’s nicer to be up 2-1 than being down 2-1.” – Nicklas Backstrom
“I hit the post, and it’s a good thing I didn’t raise my arms up. I finished up the play and got lucky. It’s a huge, huge goal.” – Alex Ovechkin
“It’s a funny game. Boy, sometimes the puck takes a different bounce and the score can be completely different.” – Matt Niskanen
“At some point we hope the league might do something [about Wilson].” – Mike Sullivan
“They all got together and they said, ‘You know what, we’ve got a good, clean check here.’” – NHL on-site supervisor Paul Devorski re: no call on Wilson
Additional Reading:
- Ovechkin’s goal lifts Capitals to Game 3 win against Penguins [NHL]
- Capitals-Penguins Game 3: Alex Ovechkin goal, Tom Wilson hit gives Washington 2-1 series lead [WaPo]
- Ovechkin takes page from Crosby, helps Capitals top Penguins in Game 3 [NHL]
- Penguins look to bounce back after Game 3 loss to Capitals [NHL]
- Tom Wilson suspended three games by NHL for hit on Zach Aston-Reese [WaPo]