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); Caps lead 2-1
The Setting:
May 17, 2018 at Capital One Arena in Washington, DC
Game in a Nutshell:
Reeling a little bit after their first real setback of the Eastern Conference Final (and probably one of their least impressive performances in the postseason), the Caps once again hit the ice in DC looking to win in front of the home crowd.
And there was good news for both the team and the red-clad fans who packed Capital One Arena that evening: Backstrom’s back, alright!
For the first time in his career, Backstrom would take the ice in an Eastern Conference Final game.
So, uh, maybe the boys could get him a win in his triumphant return, yeah? Well…
Dmitry Orlov had been having an absolute beast of a series so far, with numerous excellent chances – but to this point, he had not yet found the back of the net in this series. That ended about five minutes into the first period, when T.J. Oshie found Orlov alone in the left circle with a perfect pass, and Orlov made an even more perfect shot to the far side past Vasilevskiy for the early 1-0 lead.
The dulcet tones of Caps’ PA announcer Wes Johnson were still sharing the good news of that opening goal bad things began to happen. Michal Kempny attempted to make a blind backhand pass in his own zone – which is just a big ol’ no-no – and instead of sending it to a teammate, he put it right on the tape of Tyler Johnson. Johnson sent it to Yanni Gourde, who passed it over to Brayden Point, and just like that it was tied.
A few minutes later, with Lars Eller again cooling his heels in the penalty box (his fifth minor in the last two games), the suddenly lethal Lightning power play went to work. Another quick-passing play, another Tampa player stationed to Holtby’s right – this time Steven Stamkos – and the bad guys jumped ahead, 2-1.
From that point through to the second period, it was all Caps, putting some good chances on Vasilevskiy and keeping Tampa from getting a single shot on net of their own for almost 21 minutes between the first and second periods. Their efforts finally paid off when they broke through with the game-tying goal at around the five-minute mark of the second.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: it was Alex Ovechkin with the gorgeous pass to set up Evgeny Kuznetsov on the breakaway, resulting in a goal.
I mean…it’s become a familiar tune, but we never get tired of singing it. Tie ballgame.
And then the goalies took over.
Or, more accurately, Andrei Vasilevskiy took over.
The Caps continued to get chances to break the tie, firing shot after shot on the Tampa netminder only to have him turn them aside. By the end of the second period, the Caps had put 29 shots on goal…and only broken through twice.
The frustration was palpable.
Things evened out a little in the third period, although the goalie dueling would continue (including an absolutely ridiculous save on Brett Connolly in tight by Vasilevskiy).
That is, until Lars Eller once again made the solemn march to the penalty box, putting the Caps down a man at a key time in a tied game. Butts all around the arena clenched…but the Caps killed it off, and all seemed to be well.
For about 6 seconds. That’s all the time it took after Eller was released, but not fully back in the play, for Tampa to pounce.
The Caps failed to clear the zone as the penalty expired, and the puck instead ended up with Ondrej Palat behind the Caps’ net. Palat found Alex Killorn in front, who made a nifty move to tuck the puck between the legs of Braden Holtby.
Despite peppering Vasilevskiy a few more times in the waning moments of regulation, that Killorn tally would hold up as the game-winner. A last-second empty-netter by Anthony Cirelli would make the score look a little more lopsided than it was (especially since it probably should have been lopsided the other way)…and for the third-consecutive series, the Caps were headed to Game 5 with the series tied at two.
Once again, we’ll let the captain sum up our feelings:
Condensed Game:
Defining Moment:
They Said It:
“We’ll battle through it. This group has been resilient as hell all year… Nothing’s come easy to this team. Everybody knows that. This team’s just used to that. But we’re gonna go to Tampa and expect us to respond the way we have.” – Barry Trotz
“Obviously Vasy played great for us. They definitely had some good scoring chances that he stopped. He has been there for us all year, and he was again tonight.” – Brayden Point
“I’ll call it what it is: a missed opportunity.” – Tom Wilson
“[Eller] has to stay out of the box. It’s on him.” – Barry Trotz
“Of course, it’s a missed opportunity. It is what it is. Nothing we can do. We’re not going to look back. We’re just going to look forward. This group of guys has been in different situations all year and we fight through it. So it’s a huge test. We’re still going to have fun, we’re still going to enjoy it and we’ll see what happens.
“We’re going to Tampa and play our game and try to get a victory and come back home.” – Alex Ovechkin
Additional Reading:
- Lightning Squares Series with 4-2 Game 4 Win [Caps]
- Lightning win Game 4 against Capitals, even Eastern Final [NHL]
- Lightning, Andrei Vasilevskiy withstand Capitals’ barrage to tie Eastern Conference finals [WaPo]
- #CapsBolts Postgame Notebook: Can’t Find My Way Home [Caps]
- Capitals miss opportunity against Lightning in Game 4 [NHL]
- Capitals lament chance to take series control as Lightning win Game 4 [ESPN]
- Lightning top Capitals in Game 4 with goal just after power play ends [NHL]
- Orpik leadership key for Capitals heading into Game 5 against Lightning [NHL]
- For whatever reason, the Capitals are not at home in their own building [WaPo]
- For Barry Trotz and Jon Cooper, the Game Within the Game Begins to Unfold [Rink]
- Tom Wilson isn’t looking for your approval, but he’s happy to talk about the game he loves [The Athletic]
- How new NHL dads juggle newborns, playoff pressure [ESPN]
I remember watching that play thinking it was such a beautiful, strong, BACKHAND pass from someone who the haters always thought had such a banana curve that he couldn’t get a backhand off to save his life. Yeah, right.
I thought there was something seriously wrong with me after this game, because I should have been depressed, scared, in here-we-go-again mode. But I was confident, somehow, that they would win this series. Idk why. Beating the Pens finally had some kind of zen-like effect on me.
The only time I was really nervous after the second round victory was losing the first game to Vegas, because I wasn’t sure how they matched up, and because it would have been the most Capitals-thing ever to lose the Cup to the team in their first year of existence.
This is the one that resurrected the trauma of 2010 for me.
I feel so zen reading this difficult recap, knowing the final result.
Wyshinski had the most accurate comment about it. “They took a breath and relaxed for a second after the penalty kill expired. And that was that.” (Or essentially, that’s what he said.)