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 2-2
The Setting:
May 19, 2018 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida
Game in a Nutshell:
The Caps left Tampa with a commanding 2-0 series lead; they returned, humbled and all tied up at two games apiece, for Game 5.
And things went bad very, very quickly.
Mere seconds into the first period, the Caps turned over the puck in the neutral zone, and then were unable to contain the mighty offensive power of Ryan Callahan and Cedric Paquette, who stormed into the Caps’ end and put the puck past Holtby just 19 seconds in.
Woof.
If that early goal put a spark into the Caps, well…it didn’t exactly show, as they had just a single shot on net through the first 11 minutes of the opening frame – and in that time, Tampa would get another goal, with Ondrej Palat scoring off a virtual two-on-one with Nikita Kucherov (thanks to an uncalled trip on Steven Stamkos, who took down Dmitry Orlov) to put the home team up by two.
That would be the score heading into the locker room after 20 minutes, and the fact that it stayed 2-0 for the rest of the period was largely due to the work of Holtby.
Facing down 13 shots from Tampa, Holtby did all he could to keep the score as close as possible while his teammates remembered how to play hockey (and put just four shots on his Lightning counterpart).
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
The second period started pretty much the same way the first did, albeit with a little more time passing before the Lightning would strike again. This time, 33 seconds elapsed before the puck went into the net, on a play that could only be described as chaotic and damn lucky (for Tampa…not so much for the Caps).
Anton Stralman, inches away from Holtby, put the puck on net and the resulting save sent the puck up into the air. Callahan follows up on the rebound and the puck bounced in off of his hand. After a review to make sure he didn’t punch it in, we had a good goal. 3-0 Tampa, and things were looking bleak.
Unlike in the first period, however, that tally did seem to rile the Caps up a bit, and they began the long process of climbing back into this one.
It started with a goal from birthday boy Evgeny Kuznetsov a few minutes later, tipping a Niskanen shot past Vasilevskiy to cut the lead back to two.
The Caps’ attack continued over the rest of the second, but this time it was Vasilevskiy’s turn to keep his team in the game, turning aside 12 of the 13 shots faced in the middle frame – while the Caps held Tampa to just four at the other end.
On to the third period, where the score was holding tight at 3-1 despite the Caps’ best efforts. They took a little time to get rolling in the third, giving up some chances early before resuming their attack and peppering Vasilevskiy with another 13 shots.
Of those 13, only one would find the back of the net – off the stick of none other than Alex Ovechkin, giving his team (and all of us) a faint glimmer of hope by bringing the Caps to within one with just over a minute remaining in regulation.
Just look at this ridiculous shot:
In the dying seconds of regulation, John Carlson came thisfreakingclose to tying the game and forcing overtime…alas, Vasilevskiy said “Nyet”, and that was it.
The Caps, for the first time this postseason, found themselves facing elimination. It was gut check time.
And things were about to turn around.
Condensed Game:
Defining Moment:
They Said It:
“We just have to win two games. Our goal is to come back here and play a Game 7.” – Alex Ovechkin
“The roof nearly came off when we scored that first goal. You could see our team got a little taller on the bench.” – Jon Cooper
“[Ovechkin] didn’t want to come off the ice the last four minutes, that’s for sure. He was on a mission.” – Barry Trotz
“That first period was probably our best period of the series. But we only combined for something like nine shots over the next two periods. So we always want to keep pushing the pace like we did in the first. We sat back after Callahan got that goal and good things don’t come from that.” – Victor Hedman
“We don’t like to make it easy on ourselves very often.” – Braden Holtby
“A lot of people counted us out when we were down 0-2 (against the Columbus Blue Jackets) in the first round. Things got hard in the last series (against Pittsburgh) and we could have melted, and we just kept playing. So that’s what we’ve got to do again. Bring our best effort for Game 6 at home, win a game, and then we’ll go from there. But we’re focused on bringing our best game of the season for Game 6, and we’ll be ready to go.” – Matt Niskanen
Additional Reading:
- Third Straight Loss Puts Caps on Precipice [Caps]
- Capitals’ slow start against Lightning puts Washington on the brink of elimination [WaPo]
- Lightning defeat Capitals in Game 5, take lead in series [NHL]
- Ovechkin, Capitals fall one goal short in Game 5 loss to Lightning [NHL]
- Lightning rediscover swagger in Game 5 win against Capitals [NHL]
- Girardi blocks Ovechkin shot to help Lightning survive Game 5 [NHL]
- Capitals aim to change playoff narrative, defeat Lightning in Game 6 [NHL]
- The Capitals have spent all their house money. Do they have anything in reserve? [WaPo]
Meanwhile over in the Western Conference…
I think after this game my thoughts were, “Well, they had a good run, they just ran out of steam. But at least they showed they can beat the Penguins.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not ready for this run to be over quite yet.” – Becca
We never are, Becca. We never are.
I’m ready for game 6, let’s go! 🙂