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]
Ovi’s goal with just over a minute left is truly, truly when this started to feel different.
Smartest move I ever made that night was syncing Walton to the video. Glad I didn’t have to hear Pierre spoil Ovi’s amazing playoff game winning goal by comparing it to something Crosby did in the regular season.
really dislike those penguins
I remember I didn’t watch this game since I had tickets to the Nats game where they, coincidentally, were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. I got occasional updates on the game, which seemed to be a seesaw affair and knew they had fallen behind in the third period at some point. I walked to Metro after the Nats game (which they won by a lopsided score). When at Metro, I had gotten a text message from a co-worker who asked what would happen if the game were tied at the end of the third period. I answered that since it’s the playoffs it would go on and on and on until somebody scored.
At the point, I assumed the Caps must be in a tie game. I also had gotten updates from NHL.com on a Niskanen goal and an Ovechkin goal. So I checked the scores and noticed the Caps had a 4-3 lead with just a small amount of time left. They held on. I texted back my co-worker and said, “No tie tonight. Caps win.”
And recall it was a year where spring weather just didn’t want to come. March and April were both unseasonably cold and we were making jokes about it being February the 65th. After that game, I said, “May came in like a lamb on the very first day with a game winning goal.”
(As time passed, I said, “Which led to May showers brining thunder and lightning that petered out to nothing. Which led to June flowers which melted in the Las Vegas desert.” And all that led to swimming in fountains and drinking from a giant sized chalice.)
I still remember saying out loud as Backstrom slowly went for the 2-1 with Ovi: Get off the ice you need a chance! I am such an idiot and that goal woke up my entire apartment complex.
Ugh-didn’t need to see Pete Blackburn here (rather annoying hockey twitter guy and Boston sports bro) but enjoyed seeing him crying over the Bruins last night. I hope you aren’t putting these pieces on social media as you will get lots of hate from Caps fans and others for “living in the past” or “not getting over winning the Cup all those years ago”.
We are posting them on social media, but the response has only been positive 🙂
Good to hear.
I will go to my grave convinced that there wasn’t actually any definitive evidence against Wilson, but between the outcome of this his and the one from Game 2, the NHL felt it had to do “something”.
Yeah, looking back it felt more like a ramping up and since he didn’t get anything in Game 2 and there was another high-profile hit 2 days later… they laid out a hefty penalty.
(I think it probably deserved something, fwiw, but 3 games felt like overkill – just based on what others had/have gotten.)