Photo: YouTube

You know what they say: if something works, do it again. After winning the first Stanley Cup in franchise history last season, the Washington Capitals brought back their morning skate superstition that they used during their run to the Cup: the “hot-lap.” Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin did the team’s first “hot-lap” of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs at the team’s morning skate prior to Game 3 of their First Round Series with the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena. 

First hot lap of Capitals playoffs taken by @ovi8 pic.twitter.com/O5IYNb5cax

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) April 15, 2019

Last season, former Capitals center Jay Beagle started that tradition, which occurs at the beginning of the morning skate on the road to keep the team loose going into their game. Once the Capitals finally lost a game, the torch got passed on to Ovechkin, former head coach Barry Trotz, and center Lars Eller.

The Caps are doing some morning skate ritual thing where they’re all tapping their sticks in unison then Ovechkin did a lap and they’re going crazy and now morning skate has commenced

— Sara Civ (@SaraCivian) April 15, 2019

The Capitals were 3-1 when Ovechkin did the honors last spring. He took over the reins after the team lost their first road game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Game 4 at the Pittsburgh Penguins. In addition, they went 10-3 on the road and won all four of their playoff series away from Capital One Arena en route to winning the Stanley Cup.

HOT LAP IS BACK!! No Barry, no problem! #Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin (@ovi8) takes the first hot lap of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs at PNC Arena in Raleigh ahead of tonight’s game 3… worked pretty well last year, right? #StanleyCup #ALLCAPS @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/XrPgySbr1n

— NBC4 Sports (@NBC4Sports) April 15, 2019

Eller did not pick up from last year as he was the last Capitals to do the hot-lap and the team decided to restart the rotation.

Lars Eller did the final two hot laps before Games 2 and 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in Vegas last season (they only changed skaters after a road loss), so I asked if he should’ve done today’s:

“It’s a new year, so we start over completely from the beginning.”

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) April 15, 2019

Capitals’ Game 3 Lines

Caps projected lineup for Game 3:

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson
Vrana-Kuznetsov-Oshie
Hagelin-Eller-Connolly
Burakovsky-Dowd-Stephenson

Carlson-Jensen
Orlov-Niskanen
Orpik-Djoos

Holtby

— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) April 15, 2019

By Harrison Brown