Capitals claim 1st Stanley Cup
and was the playoff MVP, and his teammates are Washington’s first championship hockey team — and the city’s first champion in a major pro sport since the Redskins won the Super Bowlin early 1992.
Ovechkin won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP after scoring his franchise-record 15th goal ofthe postseason.
When he received the Cup from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, he shouted “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” through his gaptoothed grin before skating away and hoisting the prize over his head for a victory lap in front of thousands of red-clad fans.
“We did it,” Ovechkin said. “That’s all that matters. Look at the smiles on my teammates. This is something you’ll never forget. This moment, I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I’m so happy. It’s unbelievable.”
After Vegas won the opener, the Capitals capped their four-game surge by rallying from a third-period deficit in Game 5, banishing so many years of playoff failure with big goals and tenacious play across their lineup.
The defeat ends the incredible inaugural season of the Golden Knights, who became the NHL’s 31st franchise last fall and immediately launched into arguably the greatest debut in modern pro sports history.
Braden Holtby made 28 saves in Game 5, outplaying three-time Stanley Cup champion Marc-Andre Fleury in the other net one final time.
The Capitals couldn’t win a title without a little weirdness, however: The game clock stopped working on the T-Mobile Arena scoreboards in the final minutes, and the Capitals angrily protested while they played on. Vegas never got close to a tying goal.
Reilly Smith scored a goahead goal late in the second period for the Golden Knights, who won seven of their first eight home playoff games before dropping the last two.
Nate Schmidt and David Perron also scored in the second period, but Fleury’s 29 saves included a stopped puck that dropped underneath him where Eller swept it home for the Cup winning goal.
Washington’s Cupclinching win was its 10th on the road in this postseason, tying the NHL playoff record and illustrating the superior toughness of this team. While past editions of the Capitals created their team’s reputation for postseason flops in part by losing five playoff series in which they had won three of the first four games, Ovechkin’s latest group promptly closed out all four of its series this year on the very first try.
The Capitals had thousands of red-clad fans in the Vegas crowd and a building full of supporters watching back home along with countless thousands outside in the crowded D.C. streets. They got a barnburner of a finale befitting this thrilling series, with wild shifts of momentum.
Ovechkin, who turns 33 later this year, has been among the most exciting and productive players in his sport since joining the Capitals in 2005. Yet for all of his goal-scoring prowess and athletic swagger, the Great Eight had never won an Olympic gold medal or a Stanley Cup title.
But after becoming the fifth player in the last quarter-century to score at least 15 goals in a postseason, Ovechkin is a champion at last.He also became the first Russian captain to raise the Cupin NHL history.
The title is also validation for Holtby, who has spent his entire NHL career in Washington. After several seasons of being measured unfavorably against Fleury and other goaltending greats despite his 2016 Vezina Trophy, the Saskatchewan native also hashis long-sought ring.