- For the BAA team, see
Washington Capitols.
For the ABA
team, see Washington Caps.
The
Washington Capitals are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington,
D.C.
They are members of the
Southeast Division of the
Eastern Conference of the
National Hockey League (NHL).
They play
in the Verizon
Center
in Washington's Chinatown
neighborhood
.
History
The original Capitals logo, used from
1974-95
Along with the
Kansas City
Scouts, the Capitals joined the National Hockey League as an
expansion team for the
1974–75 season. The team was
owned by
Abe Pollin, owner of the
NBA's
Washington Bullets.
Pollin had built the
Capital
Centre
in suburban Landover, Maryland
, to house both the Bullets (who formerly played in
Baltimore
) and the Capitals. His first act as owner
was to hire Hall of
Famer
Milt Schmidt as general
manager.
With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the
World Hockey Association (WHA), the
available talent was stretched thin. The Capitals had few players
with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the
long-standing teams that were stocked with veteran players. Like
the other three teams who joined the league during the WHA era—the
Scouts,
Atlanta Flames and
New York Islanders—the Capitals did not
factor the survival of the rival league into their plans.
The Capitals' inaugural season was dreadful, even by expansion
standards. They finished 8–67–5, far and away the worst record in
the league. Their 21 points were half that of their expansion
brethren, the Scouts. The eight wins are the fewest for an NHL team
playing at least 70 games, and the .131 winning percentage is still
the worst in NHL history. They also set records for most road
losses (39 out of 40), most consecutive road losses (37) (both
still NHL records) and most consecutive losses (17), a mark tied by
the
1992–93 San Jose
Sharks. Coach
Jim
Anderson said, "I'd rather find out my wife was cheating on me
than keep losing like this. At least I could tell my wife to cut it
out." Schmidt himself had to take over the coaching reins late in
the season.
In
1975–76, Washington
went 25 straight games without a win and allowed 394 goals en route
to another horrendous record: 11–59–10 (32 points). During the
middle of the season,
Max McNab was hired
as GM, and
Tom McVie was hired as head
coach to replace Schmidt. For the rest of the 1970s and early
1980s, the Capitals alternated between dreadful seasons and
finishing only a few points out of the playoffs. In
1980 and
1981, for instance, they were in
playoff contention until the last day of the season. The one bright
spot during these years of futility was that many of McNab's draft
picks (e.g.
Rick Green,
Ryan Walter,
Mike Gartner,
Bengt Gustafsson,
Gaetan Duchesne,
Bobby Carpenter) would impact
the team for years to come, whether as important members of the
roster or crucial pieces to major trades. By the summer of
1982, there was serious talk of
the team moving out of the U.S. capital, and a "Save the Caps"
campaign was underway. Then two significant events took place to
solve the problem.
Playoffs
First, the team hired
David Poile as
General Manager. Second, as his first move, Poile pulled off one of
the biggest trades in franchise history on September 9, 1982, when
he dealt longtime regulars Ryan Walter and Rick Green to the
Montreal Canadiens for
Rod Langway,
Brian
Engblom,
Doug Jarvis, and
Craig Laughlin. This move turned the
franchise around, as Langway's solid defense helped the team to
dramatically reduce its goals-against, and the explosive
goal-scoring of
Dennis Maruk,
Mike Gartner, and Bobby Carpenter fueled the
offensive attack. Another significant move was the drafting of
defenseman
Scott Stevens during the
1982 NHL Entry Draft (the pick
was made by interim-GM
Roger Crozier,
prior to Poile's hiring). The result was a 29-point jump, a
third-place finish in the powerful
Patrick Division, and the team's first
playoff appearance in
1983. Although they were
eliminated by the three-time-defending (and eventual)
Stanley Cup Champion
New York Islanders (three games to one),
the Caps' dramatic turnaround ended any talk of the club leaving
Washington.
The Capitals would make the playoffs for each of the next 14 years
in a row. They became known for starting slow before catching fire
in January and February. However, regular-season success did not
carry into the playoffs. Despite a continuous march of stars like
Gartner, Carpenter, Langway, Gustafsson,
Mike Ridley,
Dave
Christian,
Dino Ciccarelli,
Larry Murphy, and
Kevin Hatcher, Washington was knocked out in
either the first or second round eight years in a row. In
1985–86, for instance, the Caps
finished with 107 points and won 50 games for the first time in
franchise history, good enough for the third-best record in the
league. However, they were bounced out of the playoffs in the
second round by the
New York
Rangers.
The next season brought
even more heartbreak, with a loss to the Islanders in the Patrick
Division Semifinal. This series was capped off by the classic
Easter Epic game, which ended at 1:56 am
on Easter Sunday 1987. The Capitals had thoroughly dominated most
of the game, outshooting the Islanders 75–52, but lost in overtime
when goaltender
Bob Mason was beaten on a
Pat LaFontaine shot from the blue
line. For the
1989
playoff push, Gartner and defenseman Larry Murphy were traded to
the
Minnesota North Stars in
exchange for Ciccarelli and defenseman
Bob
Rouse, however the goaltending once again faltered and they
were eliminated in the first round by the
Philadelphia Flyers. The Capitals
finally made the Wales Conference Finals in
1990, but went down in a
four-game sweep at the hands of the first-place
Boston Bruins.
Lost chances
By the mid-1990s, the
Stanley Cup seemed
to elude the Capitals. Despite having rising stars in right-winger
Peter Bondra, defenseman
Sergei Gonchar, and center/left-wing
Joe Juneau, the team's core players were
mostly aging.
The Capitals were favorites during the
1993 playoff series with the
New York Islanders but they were
upset in six games. That series was most remembered when center
Dale Hunter checked the Isles'
Pierre Turgeon from behind in Game 6 after
Turgeon scored the series-clinching goal. Hunter, who was trailing
Turgeon on the play, checked Turgeon just after the goal while he
started to celebrate. Turgeon sustained a separated shoulder from
the hit, causing him to miss the following playoff series against
the
Pittsburgh Penguins,
although he played in game 7. Hunter, who had led his team with
eight goals during that series, earned a suspension for the first
21 games of the
next
season – at the time the longest suspension for an on-ice
incident in NHL history.
From 1991 to 1994, the Capitals had their season ended three times
by the eventual Stanley Cup champions. In 1991 and 1992, they were
eliminated by the
Pittsburgh
Penguins, and by the
New York
Rangers in 1994.
Prior to the start of the
1995–96 season, in an attempt to
modernize the look and merchandise sales, the team abandoned its
original logo and color scheme in favor of a blue, black and bronze
palette with an American bald eagle with five stars as its logo.
The
alternate logo depicted the Capitol
with crossed hockey sticks behind. The new
logos were viewed as being unpopular with fans. Prior to the
2000-01 season, the team retired its blue road jersey in favor of
the alternate black Capitol uniform, but still kept the white eagle
jersey for home games.
Eastern Conference champions
Then in
1998, Peter
Bondra's 52 goals led the team, veterans Hunter, Juneau and
Adam Oates returned to old form, and
Olaf Kolzig had a solid .920 save
percentage as the Caps got past the
Boston
Bruins,
Ottawa Senators, and
Buffalo Sabres (the latter on a
dramatic overtime win in game six on a goal by Joe Juneau) en route
to the team's first (and to date, only) Stanley Cup finals
appearance. The Capitals won six overtime games, three in each of
their series against the Bruins and Sabres. However, the team was
no match for the defending champs, the
Detroit Red Wings, who won in a four-game
sweep.
That same season, Oates,
Phil Housley,
and
Dale Hunter all scored their 1,000th
career point, the only time in NHL history that one team had 3
different players reach that same milestone in a single
season.
Disappointments and rebuilding
In
1999, the Capitals
missed the playoffs due to numerous injuries, one of the highest in
the league that season. After that season, Pollin sold the Capitals
to a group headed by AOL executive
Ted
Leonsis.
The Capitals went on to win back-to-back Southeast Division titles
in 2000 and 2001, yet both years lost in the first round to the
Pittsburgh Penguins. After the
2000–01 season,
Adam Oates demanded a
trade but management refused and stripped him of his team
captaincy.
In the summer of
2001, the Capitals
landed five-time
Art Ross Trophy
winner
Jaromir Jagr, one of
the best players in the NHL in the 1990s, by trading three young
prospects to the
Pittsburgh
Penguins. Jagr was signed to the largest contract ever in NHL
history - $77 million over 7 years at an average salary of $11
million per year (over $134,000
per game), with an option
for an eighth year. However, Jagr did not live up to expectations,
as the Capitals failed to defend their division title and missed
the playoffs in
2002 despite a
winning record. Still, the
2001–2002 season
marked the highest attendance in franchise history, drawing in
710,990 fans and 17,341 per game .
In the summer of 2002, the Caps made even more roster changes,
including the signing the highly regarded
Robert Lang as a free agent, a
linemate of Jagr's from Pittsburgh. However, Oates was traded to
the
Philadelphia Flyers with 14
games left and the Caps again missed the playoffs.
The Capitals were back in the playoffs
2003, but disappointed fans again
by losing in six games to the
Tampa Bay Lightning after
starting off with a two-game lead in the best-of-seven first-round
series.
The series is well-remembered for the
three-overtime Game 6 at the then-MCI Center, the longest game in the building's history, which
was eventually decided by a power play goal as a result of Jason Doig skating on the ice too early and
warranting a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty.
In the
2003–2004
season, the Caps unloaded a lot of their high-priced talent —
not just a cost-cutting spree, but also an acknowledgment that
their attempt to build a contender with high-priced veteran talent
had failed. Jagr had never lived up to expectations during his time
with the Capitals, failing to finish among the league's top scorers
or make the postseason All-Star Team. The Caps tried to trade Jagr,
but as only one year was left on the existing
Collective Bargaining Agreement before
it expired, few teams were willing to risk $11 million on an
underperforming player. In 2004, Jagr was finally sent to the
New York Rangers for
Anson Carter and an agreement that Washington
would pay approximately four million dollars per year of Jagr's
salary, with Jagr himself agreeing to defer (with interest) $1
million per year for the remainder of his contract to allow the
trade to go ahead. This was quickly followed by Bondra going to the
Ottawa Senators. Not long after,
Robert Lang was sent to
Detroit
and Gonchar to the
Bruins. The Robert
Lang trade marked the first time in the
history of the National
Hockey League that the league's leading scorer was traded in
the middle of the season. The Capitals ended the year 23–46–10–6,
tied for the second worst record, along with the
Chicago Blackhawks.
In the
2004 NHL Entry Draft,
the Capitals won the Draft Lottery, and selected
Alexander Ovechkin first overall. During
the
NHL labor dispute of
2004–05, which cost the NHL its entire season, Ovechkin stayed
in Russia, playing for
Moscow
Dynamo. Several other Capitals played part or all of the lost
season in
Europe, including
Olaf Kolzig,
Brendan Witt, and
Jeff
Halpern. The Capitals' 2005 off-season consisted of making
D.C.-area native Halpern the team's captain, signing
Andrew Cassels,
Ben
Clymer,
Mathieu Biron and
Jamie Heward, and acquiring
Chris Clark and
Jeff Friesen via trade.
Post-lockout: The Ovechkin Era
2005–06 season
The Capitals finished the
2005–06 NHL season in the cellar
of the Southeastern Division again, with a 29–41–12 campaign,
having 12 more points than the 2003–04 Season, good for 27th out of
the 30 NHL teams. Yet the team played close in every game, playing
in 42 one-goal games, although losing 2/3 of those games.
Ovechkin's rookie season exceeded the hype, as he led all 2005–06
NHL rookies in goals, points, power-play goals and shots. He
finished third overall in the NHL in scoring and tied for third in
goals; and his 425 shots not only led the league, but also set an
NHL rookie record and was the fourth-highest total in NHL history.
Ovechkin's rookie point total was the second-best in Washington
Capitals history, and his goal total was tied for third in
franchise history. Ovechkin won the
Calder Memorial Trophy, beating out
Pittsburgh center
Sidney Crosby and
Calgary Flames defenseman
Dion Phaneuf. Many longtime Capitals had career
years, with
Dainius Zubrus netting 57
points, Halpern having a career-best 33 assists,
Matt Pettinger putting in a career-best
20-goal, 38-point effort and seven others on the relatively young
team topping 20 points for the first time. Two notable landmarks
were also hit by Capitals, as the team's longest tenured Capital,
Olaf Kolzig, won his 250th game in goal and
Andrew Cassels became the 204th player to
play 1,000 games, although he did not finish out his season with
the team.
A notable first was that Washington area native Jeff
Halpern was named captain of the hometown Capitals. At
the 2006 trade deadline, March 8, Witt was traded to
Nashville.
2006–07 season
In the 2006 offseason, Halpern left the Capitals to join the
Dallas Stars; Chris Clark became the
Capitals' new captain.
Richard
Zednik returned to the Capitals in
2006–07 after a disappointing
16-goal, 14-assist season in 2005–06 with Montreal, but was later
dealt at the trade deadline to the New York Islanders after a
disappointing and injury plagued season; the Caps also signed
former
Philadelphia Flyers
enforcer
Donald Brashear.
Yet the Capitals finished with the same point total (70) in
2006–2007 as they did the year before, although they won one less
game.
Alexander Ovechkin was the
Capitals' lone representative in the All-Star game. The year was
also notable for the breakout of
Alexander Semin, who notched 38 goals in
only his second NHL season.
2007 offseason and 2007–08 season
The Capitals unveiled new uniforms on June 22, 2007 which coincided
with the
NHL Entry Draft and
the new league-wide adaptation of the
Reebok-designed
uniform system for
2007–08. The change marks a
return to the red, white, and blue color scheme originally used
from 1974 to 1995.
The new primary logo is reminiscent of the
original Capitals' logo, complete with a hockey stick formed by the
letter "t"; it also includes a new feature the original logo didn't
have: 3 stars representing Maryland
, Virginia
, and DC. More
simply, the stars are a reference to the
flag of DC, which is in turn based
on the shield of
George Washington's family
coat of arms.
The Capitals finally signed Swedish phenom
Nicklas Backstrom, the fourth overall pick
in the
2006 NHL Entry Draft, to
three-year entry-level contract. They also signed 19-year-old
Simeon Varlamov to a three-year entry-level contract. They then
went on to fill needs at defense, by signing puck moving defenseman
Tom Poti, right wing, by signing
Viktor Kozlov, and center, by signing
playmaker
Michael Nylander. Because
of these signings there was much more hope for the 07–08 season and
players were looking towards the playoffs.
After starting the season 6–14–1, the Capitals fired coach
Glen Hanlon and replaced him with
Hershey Bears coach
Bruce Boudreau on Thanksgiving Day, 2007. On
January 10, 2008, the Capitals signed Ovechkin to a league-record
$124 million contract extension; at 13 years, it also had the
second-longest term of any contract in the NHL, after
New York Islanders goaltender
Rick DiPietro's 15-year contract. Despite the
Capitals' young defense and injuries to key players such as Michael
Nylander and
Brian Pothier, Boudreau
engineered a remarkable turnaround. Aided by key moves at the trade
deadline (
Matt Cooke,
Sergei Fedorov and
Cristobal Huet), Ovechkin's league-leading 65
goals, and
Mike
Green's NHL defenseman leading 18 goals, the Capitals won the
Southeast Division title
for the first time since the
2000–01 NHL season, edging out
the
Carolina Hurricanes for the
division title on the final game of the season. Their remarkable
end of season run included winning 11 of the final 12 regular
season games. The Capitals became the first team in NHL history to
make the playoffs after being ranked 14th or lower in their
conference standings at the season's midpoint.. The Capitals drew
the
Philadelphia
Flyers in the first round, and managed to force a Game 7 after
being down 3-1 in the series. They ultimately lost to the Flyers
3–2 in OT. After the season concluded, Boudreau's efforts were
rewarded with a long term contract.
The accolades for the team continued to roll in after the end of
the season. Alex Ovechkin won the
Art
Ross Trophy, the
Maurice "Rocket" Richard
Trophy, the
Hart Trophy and the
Lester B. Pearson Award. Ovechkin became the
first player in NHL history to win all four awards in the same
season. He also was the first player to win an MVP award in any
major sport in the Washington, DC area since
Joe Theismann won the NFL MVP in 1983.
Moreover, he was named an NHL First Team All-Star and became the
first player since 1953 to be named as such in each of his first
three years in the NHL. Nicklas Backstrom was a finalist for the
Calder Trophy, but ended up second to
Chicago's Patrick Kane; however, Backstrom was still selected to
the All-Star Rookie Team. Bruce Boudreau won the
Jack Adams Award for NHL best coach.
Ovechkin and
Mike
Green were named to the Sporting News All-Star Team, with
Ovechkin being the Sporting News Player of the Year.
2008–09 season
Season-by-season record
This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by
the Capitals. For the full season-by-season history, see
Washington Capitals
seasons
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses,
OTL = Overtime Losses/SOL = Shootout Losses, Pts = Points, GF =
Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in
minutes
| Season |
GP |
W |
L |
OTL |
Pts |
GF |
GA |
PIM |
Finish |
Playoffs |
| 2004–05 |
Season cancelled because of 2004–05 NHL lockout |
| 2005–06 |
82 |
29 |
41 |
12 |
70 |
237 |
306 |
1426 |
5th, Southeast |
Did not qualify |
| 2006–07 |
82 |
28 |
40 |
14 |
70 |
235 |
286 |
1205 |
5th, Southeast |
Did not qualify |
| 2007–08 |
82 |
43 |
31 |
8 |
94 |
242 |
231 |
1015 |
1st, Southeast |
Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 3-4 (Flyers) |
| 2008–09 |
82 |
50 |
24 |
8 |
108 |
272 |
245 |
1021 |
1st, Southeast |
Lost in Conference Semifinals, 3-4 (Penguins) |
Players
Current roster
Team captains
Honored members
Retired Numbers:
- 5 Rod Langway: D,
1982–1993, 804 GP, 27 G, 193 A, 220 Pts, 557 PIMs, +119. Retired
November 26th, 1997
- 7 Yvon Labre: D,
1974–1980, 314 GP, 12 G, 84 A, 96 Pts, 756 PIMs, -89. Retired
November 22nd, 1980.
- 11 Mike Gartner:
RW, 1979–1989, 805 GP, 413 G, 419 A, 832 Pts, 833 PIMs +63. Retired
December 28th, 2008.
- 32 Dale Hunter: C,
1987–1999, 972 GP, 206 G, 425 A, 631 Pts, 2426 PIMs, -12. Retired
March 11th, 2000.
The Capitals honor the NHL's league-wide retirement of
Wayne Gretzky's #99
Hall of Famers:
- Mike Gartner: RW, 1979-1989, 805
GP, 413 G, 419 A, 832 Pts, 833 PIMs +63. Inducted Class of
2001
- Rod Langway: D, 1982-1993, 804 GP,
27 G, 193 A, 220 Pts, 557 PIMs, +119. Inducted Class of 2002
- Larry Murphy: D,
1983-1989, 495 GP, 94 G, 276 A, 370 Pts, 383 PIMs, +58. Inducted
Class of 2004
- Scott Stevens: D, 1982-1990, 668
GP, 107 G, 376 A, 483 Pts, 1808 PIMs, +95. Inducted Class of
2007
Statistics include regular season and playoffs.
First-round draft picks
Franchise scoring leaders
These are the top-ten regular season point-scorers in franchise
history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular
season.
Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G =
Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; * =
current Capitals player
NHL awards and trophies
Franchise individual records
Goals
- Most goals in a season: Alexander
Ovechkin, 65 (2007–08)
- Most goals in a season, rookie: Alexander Ovechkin, 52 (2005–06)
- Most goals in a season, defensemen: Kevin Hatcher, 34, (1992–93)
- Most powerplay goals in a season: Alexander Ovechkin, 22 (2007–08) &
Peter Bondra, 22 (2000–01)
- Most goals in a career: Peter
Bondra, 472
- Most goals in a career, defensemen: Kevin Hatcher, 149
- Most powerplay goals in a career: Peter
Bondra, 137
- Most shorthanded goals in a career: Peter Bondra, 32
Assists
Points
Penalty minutes
- Most penalty minutes in a season: Alan
May, 339 (1989–90)
- Most penalty minutes in a career: Dale
Hunter, 2003
References
- USATODAY.com - Sports
- http://www.washingtoncaps.com/news/news.asp?story_id=4783
- "Back in Red, White and Blue, Caps Make a Colorful
Statement" Washington Post June 22, 2007.
- Coming All the Way Back -
washingtonpost.com
- A.O. Snags Hart, Pearson; Boudreau Wins Adams -
Capitals Insider
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