In , the team moved their home ice hockey rink from the suburban Capital Centre which was located in Landover, Maryland to the new Verizon Center in Washington, D. It was renamed the Capital One arena on August 9th, Businessman Ted Leonsis has owned the team since and has revitalized the franchise by drafting star players such as Alexander Ovechkin , Nicklas Backstrom , and Mike Green.
The —10 Capitals won the franchise's first-ever Presidents' Trophy for being the team with the most points at the end of the regular season. They won it a second time in — 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. The Capitals had few players with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the long-standing teams that were stocked with veteran players. The Capitals' inaugural season was dreadful, even by expansion standards.
They finished with far and away the worst record in the League at 8—67—5. 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. They also set records for most road losses 39 out of 40 , most consecutive road losses 37 , and most consecutive losses Head 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. Only once in NHL history has another team even come close to matching this futility: the —81 Winnipeg Jets finished with nine wins and 57 losses, but a relatively impressive 14 ties. In the —76 season, Washington went straight games without a win and allowed goals en route to another horrendous record: 11—59—10 32 points.
During the middle of the season, Max McNab was hired as the team's general manager, and Tom McVie was hired as head coach to replace Schmidt. For the rest of the s and early s, the Capitals alternated between dreadful seasons and finishing only a few points out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. In and 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. Rick Green , Ryan Walter , Mike Gartner , Bengt Gustafsson , Gaetan Duchesne and Bobby Carpenter would impact the team for years to come whether as important members of the roster or crucial pieces to major trades.
Pollin stuck it out through the Capitals' first decade, even though they were usually barely competitive. This stood in contrast to the Capitals' expansion brethren, the Scouts; they were forced to move to Denver after only two years because their original owners did not have the resources or patience to withstand the struggles of an expansion team.
By the summer of , however, there was serious talk of the team moving out of the U. Then two significant events took place to revive the franchise. 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.
The result was a point jump, a third-place finish in the powerful Patrick Division, and the team's first playoff appearance in Even though 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.
They became known for starting slow before catching fire in January and February. However, regular-season success did not carry into the playoffs. For instance, in the —86 season, the Caps finished with points and won 50 games for the first time in franchise history, good enough for the third-best record in the NHL. They defeated the Islanders in the first round but were eliminated 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 am on Easter Sunday 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 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 , but went down in a four-game sweep at the hands of the first-place Boston Bruins. From to , the Capitals would lose in either the first or the second round of the playoffs. They would eliminate the Rangers in the first round but lost the second round to the Pittsburgh Penguins in In and , they would lose in the first round to the Penguins and the Islanders, respectively. In , they won their first round series against the Penguins but lost in the second round to the Rangers.
In and , they lost in the first round both times to the Penguins. They would miss the playoffs in , but they came the closest to winning the Stanley Cup one year later. The Capitals won six overtime games, three in each of their series against the Bruins and Sabres.
However, the team was outmatched by the defending champions, the Detroit Red Wings, who won in a four-game sweep. That same season, Oates, Phil Housley and Hunter all scored their 1,th career point, the only time in NHL history that one team had three different players reach that same milestone in a single season.
After their championship run, the Capitals finished the season with a record of and failed to qualify for the playoffs.
The Capitals went on to win back-to-back Southeast Division titles in and , yet both years lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Penguins.
After the —01 season, Adam Oates demanded a trade, but management refused and they stripped him of his team captaincy. However, after Adam Oates was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, the Capitals failed to defend their division title and missed the playoffs in despite a winning record. Still, the —02 season marked the highest attendance in franchise history, drawing in , fans and 17, per game. Before the —03 season, the Caps made more roster changes, including the signing of highly regarded Robert Lang as a free agent, a linemate of Jagr's from Pittsburgh.
Stanley Cup Winner — Capitals Primary Logo. Capitals Alternate Logo. Capitals Wordmark Logo. Capitals Concept Logo. Established City Washington D. Sports History. Baseball History. Basketball History. College History. Football History. Hockey History. The Atlanta Flames and New York Islanders had previously had to deal with such a shortage two years before; by the time the Caps and Scouts arrived, the situation was even worse.
As a result, both teams were filled with players who, for the most part, lacked professional experience; this situation was obviously a disadvantage against the sixteen other teams in the league.
As a result, the Capitals' inaugural season was a real nightmare. Dreadful even by expansion standards, the Caps finished the season with a dismal 8—67—5 record, good for 21 points, far and away the worst record in the league. Even their fellow Scouts, who were all but stellar themselves, could still manage twice as many points during that time.
Among the other sad records they established, were the record for the most road losses 39 out of 40 , most consecutive road losses 37 and most consecutive losses.
If the first two records still last as of today, the latter was tied by the —93 San Jose Sharks. Coach 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. With 25 straight games without a win and a goals against record, the Capitals were en route to a 11—59—10 record, good for 32 points.
Greg Joly , the NHL Amateur Draft 's first pick overall, who was expected to become a franchise player, failed to live up to the expectations and was dealt to the Detroit Red Wings after the season. Washington fared little better during the next few seasons; they would alternate between dreadful seasons and promising ones where they'd finish just a few points out of the playoffs. But this era, no matter how futile on the ice, had one bright spot.
With all the bad seasons and the early draft picks, McNab selected several excellent players Rick Green , Ryan Walter , Mike Gartner , Bengt-Ake Gustafsson , Gaetan Duchesne and Bobby Carpenter , to name a few who would change the face of the team in the 's, whether by their performance on the ice or by their involvement in major trades.
However, the team's overall horrendous performances made talks of a move away from the US capital very serious by the end of ; something had to be done to keep the team home.
A "Save the Caps" campaign was underway, and two significant events changed the franchise's destiny. The first such event was the hiring of David Poile as general manager. The second was the first move he did. This move literally turned the Caps into another team. Langway's reliability on the blue line solved one of the problems of the team: its enormous number of goals against.
At the other end of the ice, Dennis Maruk , Mike Gartner and Bobby Carpenter went into a goal-scoring frenzy, solving another of the Caps problems. The result was no less than a 29 points jump, which propelled the Caps to a third place in the powerful Patrick Division - this strong result ensured them a first time playoffs participation in almost a decade of existence. They fell to the three-time-defending Stanley Cup champions, the New York Islanders , but still, that was one giant step in the right direction, a step that was enough to shut all the moving talks.
Following this era of mediocrity came a new era of regular season abundance, which had them participate in the playoffs for the next fourteen seasons. If the team usually started the season prety slowly, the Capitals usually ignited in January or February.
But regular season success is not warrant of playoffs success; the Caps illustrated it well by failing to advance very far in the playoffs. The Capitals did not lack star players, with the likes of Gartner, Carpenter, Langway, Gustafsson, Mike Ridley , Dave Christian , Dino Ciccarelli , Larry Murphy or Kevin Hatcher , but they still were knocked out of the playoffs in the first or second round of the playoffs for eight years in a row.
This resulted in some heartbreaking moments, such as , where the team, after finishing the season with 50 wins and points, both franchise records, were kicked out of the playoffs by the New York Rangers in the second round.
The next season, another such moment happened, perhaps even a worse one than the previous season, when Washington faced the Islanders in the Patrick Division Semifinal. This series was capped off by a classic, the Easter Epic game, which ended at am on Easter Sunday After a thorough domination by the Capitals, who outshoot New York , they still lost in overtime after goaltender Bob Mason let a blue line shot by Pat Lafontaine in.
With Gartner and Murphy traded to the Minnesota North Stars for Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse , the Caps underwent the NHL playoffs with confidence, but again faltered due to poor goaltending, which led to a first round ousting by the Philadelphia Flyers.
They finally reached the Wales Conference in , only to be swept in four games by the Boston Bruins. New stars were on the rise in Washington in the 's. In , Washington was favourite for a win over the Islanders in the first round, yet were upset in six games. The Isles' win was darkened by a gesture from Dale Hunter , who out of frustration checked by behind New York's Pierre Turgeon after he had scored the series-clinching goal.
Turgeon awkwardly fell on the ice and suffered a separated shoulder; he had to miss the second round against the Pittsburgh Penguins. This move earned Hunter a 21 games suspension, to be served from the first game of next season.
At the time, no suspension for an on-ice incident had ever lasted that long in NHL history. In order to achieve this, they had to win six overtime goals three against both Boston and Buffalo. But this proved not enough, and the Detroit Red Wings swept them in four games.
That same season, Oates, Phil Housley , and Dale Hunter all scored their 1,th career point, the only time in NHL history that one team had 3 different players reach that same milestone in a single season. In , the very year after participating to the Stanley Cup finals, Washington missed the playoffs. Injuries had plagued the team throughout the season.
They bounced back the next season, though; they went to win back-to-back Southeast Division titles in and Still, both times they fell in the first round to the Penguins.
Following the second such occurence, Adam Oates demanded to be traded. The management refused, however; they went even further and stripped him from his captaincy. The presence of the superstar however drew record crowds; an average of 17, fans showed up every game, and at the end of the season, it's , fans who attended to the Caps games.
In the summer of , more roster changes were made in order to make it to the Stanley Cup. At first, it seemed to have worked. Washington was back to the playoffs in They met the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round and gave themselves a lead in the series after two matches. Still, they managed to lose the series in six games; game six went into triple overtime at the MCI Center ; Washington lost on a power play goal, a power play caused by a blunder by Jason Doig who skated on the ice too early, resulting in a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty against the Caps.
In , the Caps unloaded a lot of their very costly talent. That was a cost-cutting spree, but also an acknowledgement that they had failed at building a Stanley Cup contender team by signing high-priced veterans.
The Caps did try to trade him, but due to his salary, no team was willing to pay so much for an underperformer, especially since there was only a year left to the current CBA Collective Bargain Agreement. Lang's 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.
Alexander Ovechkin in Luck smiled upon the Capitals in They selected Alexander Ovechkin with this pick. With the NHL season completely lost due to the labor dispute between the league and the players, Ovechkin stayed in Russia with Dynamo Moscow. The season was filled with promise. They once again were bottom dwellers as they finished the season dead last in the Southeastern Division once again, finishing the season with an unimpressive record a 12 points improvement from The Caps still finished 27th overall in the league.
However, there were many bright sides that led to think that Washington's pain was something that would end in the near future.
Even though they lost more than half of their games, they always fought bitterly to win and were very rarely outclassed - in fact, 42 of the Caps' games were one-goal games. But the brightest spot on the Caps' roster was Alexander Ovechkin. In his rookie season, he finished third overall in scoring and in goals scored in the league, scoring 52 goals and collecting points, the kind of performance that had gotten extremely rare for rookies in the modern NHL.
He established an NHL rookie record with shots he was league leader in that chapter and finished in the books as having given the Caps' second best ever performance by a rookie and his goal total was tied for third best in the team's history. Such dominance was rightly so crowned by the Calder Memorial Trophy , beating another much-hyped player, Sidney Crosby , and defenceman Dion Phaneuf.
His teammates also enjoyed good moments. Lithuanian Dainius Zubrus earned a career-high 57 points, while Jeff Halpern established a personnal mark for assists 33 , Matt Pettinger for goals and points 20 and 38, respectively , while several of the younger players on the roster reached the 20 points mark for the first time in their careers. To make things better, Jeff Halpern, a native of the Washington area, was named captain during the season, a nice first for the team.
A notable departure occured on March 8th, on the trade deadline , when Brendan Witt was traded to the Nashville Predators. After a disappointing start in , in which the Capitals saw then-head coach Glen Hanlon be fired, the Capitals made a historic turnaround. Winning 11 of their last 12 games, the Bruce Boudreau -lead Caps came back to win the Southeast Division thanks in part to Alex Ovechkin 's 65 goal season, the most ever by a left winger in a single campaign.
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