On this date, eight years back, the club nailed down the first championship in its existence over in Washington. A drought of more than four decades — 43 years all told — came to a close once the Caps emerged with a 4-3 verdict over Vegas in the fifth game of that 2018 championship round to win the series in five.
The team honored the occasion this past Sunday by rolling out a stop-motion clip on its X account, centered on the No. 8 sweater belonging to Alex Ovechkin.
The club's eight-year commemorative video
Washington scaled hockey's summit at the T-Mobile Arena out in Las Vegas on the 7th of June — 6/7 — back in 2018. Lighting the lamp were Lars Eller, Devante Smith-Pelly, Jakub Vrana, plus Ovechkin; in goal, Braden Holtby kicked aside 28 shots to bank a 16th playoff victory, having opened the team's run as the No. 2 behind Philipp Grubauer.
Recapping the clincher
No one scored in the first period, yet the second stanza of that fifth game produced five goals split between the two clubs.
The opening tally belonged to Vrana, who corralled a Tom Wilson setup and finished on a breakaway 6:24 in.
A one-time Caps blueliner, Nate Schmidt — whom Vegas had grabbed off the Washington roster through the previous summer's Expansion Draft — evened it 3:16 afterward. Some 34 ticks beyond that, Ovechkin joined in, ripping a one-timer with the man advantage. Handed a gorgeous saucer feed by Nicklas Backstrom, the captain solved Marc-Andre Fleury to nudge his club in front 2-1.
Vegas, though, declined to vanish; a David Perron tally and then a Reilly Smith strike handed the lead back to the home side ahead of the closing frame.
In the third, two Washington depth forwards carved their names into club lore. At the 10:08 mark, Smith-Pelly lunged across the blue paint and stuffed the puck behind Fleury, knotting things at 3-3. That enormous strike marked his seventh tally of the playoff run — a jaw-dropping effort from a guy who hadn't even been assured a job out of camp.
A scant 2:07 beyond that equalizer, Eller buried what rates as the most pivotal goal the club has ever produced. A Brett Connolly drive squeaked through Fleury's pads and dribbled toward the stripe, where Eller, standing unaccompanied off to the side, hammered in the rebound and whipped the bench into euphoria.
The Caps then dug in over the final seven-plus minutes — 37 seconds beyond seven, to be exact — pulling off what had appeared improbable when the season started.
That triumph at last enabled Ovechkin to raise the trophy overhead after a dozen years.
Ovechkin, the Great Eight himself, took Lord Stanley's chalice for a spin around the rink before passing it to Backstrom, who had ridden shotgun for the bulk of that stretch.
For his part, Ovechkin walked away with the Conn Smythe as the playoffs' top man, having racked up 27 points (15g, 12a) through 24 postseason outings. Atop the entire playoff scoring chart, for his part, sat Evgeny Kuznetsov, who wrapped up with 32 points (12g, 20a).
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For loads of local supporters — and beyond a doubt in my case — this rated as the finest day across the annals of both the Capitals and the DC sports scene. Season upon season, the club just couldn't break through.
Then, through one enchanting spring, the bounces finally went their way — anything from the hot laps Barry Trotz ran to the series-clinching overtime marker Kuzy potted on Pittsburgh. Next came the so-called Summer of Ovi — every bit as unforgettable, maybe even more.