Defending Cup champions revel in Vegas return
LAS VEGAS — The nostalgia tour started with Sunday night’s flight into McCarran International Airport, the bright Las Vegas Strip coming into focus on the descent. The Capitals could pick out the MGM Grand, where they’d partied into the next morning here six months ago. Then on the short trip to T-Mobile Arena on Monday morning, coach Todd Reirden tried to remember his exact steps from the last time he was here, just in case there was some good luck left in that path.
As forward Andre Burakovsky walked past the bars and restaurants flanking the arena, he chuckled at how many had made special signs during the Stanley Cup finals, jokingly offering a cocktail in honor of Alex Ovechkin — a white Russian without the cup.
Visiting locker rooms tend to be stale — home teams don’t exactly want their opponent to feel too comfortable there — but the Capitals were excited to get back in T-Mobile Arena’s ahead of their game there on Tuesday night. Of all the memories from the team’s raucous Stanley Cup celebrations, the champagne- and beer-soaked start in the locker room right after Washington first got its hands on the trophy with a Game 5 win remains the most meaningful for players.
When asked about his memories from the room following the win, forward Brett Connolly rhetorically replied, “The dressing room we ruined?”
The last time they saw that room, it was as if a boozy monsoon had blown through to the tune of the Capitals singing “We Are The Champions.” As players first entered the room ahead of a practice at the rink Monday, some joked about who did what where.
“The first thing I was looking at was if they changed the floors or the ceiling in here,” Burakovsky said.
“It has some real flashbacky-type feeling to it,” defenseman John Carlson said. “It’s where a lot of us achieved our dreams for the first time, so plenty of good feelings in that sense. I guess you could say it’s a little funky just thinking about what was happening in here the last time we were walking through here.”
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