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 3 – Capitals (1) vs. Lightning (1); Series tied 0-0
The Setting:
May 11, 2018 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida
Game in a Nutshell:
The Caps had slayed their dragon. They had captured their white whale. They had beaten the Penguins to advance to the Eastern Conference Final for just the third time in franchise history (and the first time in the Alex Ovechkin era).
But they were only halfway to their goal, and a pretty decent Tampa Bay Lightning team was waiting for them – so while the emotions of that win over Pittsburgh were still fresh, it was time to re-focus on the task at hand. For the first time in the postseason, the Caps would start a series on the road, so it was off to Tampa for Game 1.
The good news was that they would have some reinforcements for said Game 1, with Tom Wilson making his return from a three-game suspension and Andre Burakovsky returning to the lineup for the first time since getting injured in Game 2 against Columbus.
The bad news…they would be without Nicklas Backstrom, who was injured in Game 5 against the Pens. Alas, in the playoffs, you play the hand you’re dealt, and with Backstrom dealing with his hand, it was time to play.
As had been the case in so many of their games to this point, the Caps were the first to strike – and if you had Michal Kempny getting the first goal of the series on your bingo card, raise your hand.
Put your hand down, you liar.
A little under eight minutes into the opening period of the ECF, the Caps established their forecheck in Tampa’s zone, the puck going from Alex Ovechkin to John Carlson to Evgeny Kuznetsov, who dropped the puck off with Kempny at the blue line. Kempny then took advantage of a screen of roughly 147 bodies in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy (okay maybe it was just five dudes, but three of them were in blue) to put the Caps up by one.
Not hard to see how Vasilevskiy would lose track of the puck on that play, but it’s mind-boggling how the puck found its way through the mass of humanity.
The Caps continued to get great chances on Vasilevskiy, hoping to extend their lead, but the Tampa goalie kept things close. Then, in the dying seconds of the first period, a crazy sequence unfolded.
Ryan McDonagh forced a turnover in the Caps’ zone, then sent the puck up ice to a streaking Nikita Kucherov – probably one of two or three Tampa players you definitely don’t want to see on a breakaway. Kucherov muscles Dmitry Orlov off of him and makes a phenomenal play while falling to put the puck past Braden Holtby, and it looked like we were all tied up.
Except…this was happening at the same time:
Easily the most blatant too many men on the ice call since, well…this. (At least this one actually was called.) The officials conferred at center ice and agreed – no goal for the Lightning, and a power play for the Caps.
1.8 seconds later…the goat awoke:
I mean, you can’t…he just…it’s like…I don’t…yeah. Ovechkin’s good at hockey.
So because of that chaos, and the captain, instead of going to the locker rooms tied at 1-1, the Caps took a two-goal lead into the second period. What a weird postseason it continued to be.
A few minutes into the second period, the Caps added to their lead, thanks to another unlikely hero: Jay Beagle.
A few minutes later, it was back to the power play for the Caps. You know, the power play that had been clicking at an insane 31% in the postseason up to this point, and which had already scored one goal in this game. That power play.
This time the Caps took a little longer to strike with the extra man, going a whole 38 seconds before Lars Eller cleaned up a juicy rebound in the paint to give the Caps a 4-0 lead.
Hmm. Eller stationing himself in front of the net and finding a way to cash in on a rebound? Wasn’t the first time this postseason…wouldn’t be the last.
But let’s not skip ahead too far. Back to this game, which was well in hand at 4-0…and it was Louis Domingue time.
With the Tampa backup in net and a cushy four-goal lead under their belts, there’s a chance that the Caps got a wee bit cocky, a little sloppy, because the Lightning started to push back in the third period. It started early, with Nikita Kucherov sending a ridiculous pass across the ice to Steven Stamkos, who was able to fire it into the net before Braden Holtby could even get over.
At some point after the Lightning cut the lead to three, this happened, and we all remembered why we disliked Chris Kunitz so much (honestly it wasn’t something we needed to be reminded of but here we are):
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 12, 2018
Scumbag.
Later in the third period, the Lightning would score again, but really all that did was give Jay Beagle a game-winning goal in the Eastern Conference Final of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
And that, my friends, is magical.
Condensed Game:
Defining Moment:
They Said It:
“One thing we really wanted to focus on was to not have a letdown after, obviously, there’s a lot of emotions through our locker room after that series win.” – Braden Holtby
“The whole game wasn’t good enough for where we need to be at this time of year.” – Ryan Callahan
“I think he kind of falls in the shadow a little bit of our other two centermen, who are world-class players. But Lars has been a very, very big part of our team’s success this year.” – T.J. Oshie
“We’re in the conference final and we just didn’t treat it that way.” – Jon Cooper
“Obviously the one at the end of the first, it hurts, but it’s a bang-bang play. [Ovechkin] has one of the best shots in the league, and [Alex Killorn] tries to block it, and he just shoots it by him.” – Dan Girardi
“I think this whole playoffs we went out there with an attack mentality. It’s paid dividends for us. And it did tonight.” – John Carlson
Additional Reading:
- Capitals-Lightning Game 1: Washington strikes first, takes 1-0 series lead over Tampa [WaPo]
- Ovechkin, Capitals top Lightning in Game 1 [NHL]
- Suddenly, the Capitals are on the right side of a series of fortunate events [WaPo]
- Capitals waste no time making Lightning’s bad break worse in Game 1 [NHL]
- Capitals show no emotional letdown, take care of Lightning in Game 1 [ESPN]
- Ovechkin dominant force for Capitals in Game 1 win against Lightning [NHL]
- Lightning’s ineffective penalty kill proves a major problem against the Capitals [WaPo]
- Lars Eller steps out of injured Nicklas Backstrom’s shadow and into the spotlight [WaPo]
- Kempny adjusting to role with Capitals in Eastern Conference Final [NHL]
- Lightning defenseman tried to copy Alex Ovechkin’s moves. Now he’s trying to stop them. [WaPo]
- “Mama Lucia! Mama Lucia!” by Brooks Orpik [The Players Tribune]
I remember that huge swing from tied to 2-0. Man, everything came together that year.
P.S. I don’t suppose we can get a new Off-Topic Open Thread. It’s fallen off the front page, so it’s harder for people to find >.> <.<
Yup! All set: https://www.japersrink.com/off-topic-open-thread-2/
Hurray, thank you! These recaps have been a ton of fun to read.
N’aww, thanks! 🙂 They’ve been SUPER fun to write so I’m glad others are enjoying them.
So happy he got the bag and we weren’t the ones paying for it.
I think I”ll re-watch it!
Waaaaait how are you doing that?? I’ve really wanted to watch the full games before doing these recaps and haven’t been able to find them…
Used to be on NHLTV, but ESPN eliminated that.
If I knew that was going to happen, I would have recorded all the wins. I remember they had the US, Canadian, and French broadcasts.
Same. Before the switch I used to pull up random games to rewatch all the time. Losing the archive is a huge bummer.
Because the NHL doesn’t care about being a responsible steward of its own history. This stupid f**king league survives despite itself – just imagine what it would be like if it were run with competency or any sort of vision.
I emailed the Caps and told them I’d be willing to buy a DVD of the 3-5 minute recaps that they did (I liked them better than the NHL ones), but never heard back.
I still have most of the wins on the DVR. It’s a problem, though, because the DVR is way past its replacement date, so at some point I just have to let them go. I could record them to DVD, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort at this point.