Washington Capitals

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The Washington Capitals are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C.. They play in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Facts

Founded: 1974

Arena: Verizon Center (formerly known as MCI Center)

:Former Arena: US Airways Arena (previously known as Capital Centre, US Air Arena)

Uniform colors: Blue, black, and bronze

Logo design: Two logos: 1) The United States Capitol dome, crossed hockey sticks, a puck, and the words "WASHINGTON CAPITALS", and 2) A stylized eagle's body with bronze stars and the word "CAPITALS" underneath

Former colors (1974-95): Red, white and blue

Former logo design (1974-95): The word "capitals" in reverse italic lower case letters with the "t" forming a hockey stick

Mascot: Slapshot

Rivals: Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Division Championships: 3 - 1988-89, 1999-00, 2000-01

Conference Championships: 1 - 1997-98

Stanley Cup Finals appearances: 1 - 1997-98 (lost to Detroit, 0-4)

Franchise history

The original Capitals logo, used from 1974 to 1995.

Along with the Kansas City Scouts, the Capitals joined the NHL as an expansion team for the 1974-75 season. With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the rival World Hockey Association, the talent pool available to stock the new teams was extremely thin. In their first season, the Capitals would set an NHL record for futility, losing 67 of 80 games, and only winning one on the road. The Scouts fared only marginally better, and the expansion was widely seen as having been a mistake.

The team did not fare much better through the rest of the 1970s and early 80's. By the summer of 1982, there was serious talk of the team moving out of D.C., and a "Save the Caps" campaign was underway. Then two significant events took place to solve the problem. First, the team hired 33-year old David Poile as General Manager. Second, as his first move, Poile pulled off one of the biggest trades in franchise history on September 9 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 not only turned the franchise around, but the addition of the new players helped lead the team during the 1982-83 NHL season reach the playoffs for the first time. In additional, they were also helped by the explosive goal scoring of Dennis Maruk, Mike Gartner, and Bobby Carpenter. Although they were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders, their first ever playoff appearance helped the team remain in Washington.

The Caps would make the playoffs for each of the next 14 years in a row, but every time it ended in heartbreak. In the late 1980s, the Capitals, always a contender in the regular season, could never shake off their reputation for being "chokers". Despite a continuous march of stars like Gartner, Carpenter, Bengt Gustafsson, Mike Ridley, Dave Christian, Dino Ciccarelli, Rod Langway, or Kevin Hatcher, only once in that time period did the team ever get past the second round of the playoffs, a 4-game sweep at the hands of the Boston Bruins in the 1990 Wales Conference Finals.

By the mid-1990s, the Capitals seemed to fritter away whatever chance they had at lifting the Stanley Cup. Despite having rising stars in right-winger Peter Bondra, defenseman Sergei Gonchar, and center Joe Juneau (the latter already having his best days behind him when he was traded from the Bruins in 1994), the team's core players were mostly aging. One of the team's darkest days came in a 1993 playoff series with the New York Islanders, when Dale Hunter was suspended 21 games for a vicious hit on Pierre Turgeon after he had just scored the series-winning goal.

The Capitals finally took a step to getting rid of their choker image in 1998. Peter Bondra's 52 goals led the team, veterans Juneau and Adam Oates returned to old form, and Olaf Kölzig had a solid .920 save percentage as the Caps got past the Bruins, Ottawa Senators, and Buffalo Sabres (the latter on a dramatic double-overtime win in game 6) en route to the team's first (and to date, only) Stanley Cup finals appearance. However, the team was no match for the juggernaut Detroit Red Wings, who won in a four-game sweep.

In 1999, the Capitals missed the playoffs. They went on to win back-to-back Southeast Division titles, yet both years lost in the first round to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yet the Caps scored a major coup in the summer of 2001, landing Jaromír Jágr, one of the best players in the NHL in the 1990s, for a song from a near-bankrupt Pittsburgh team. Despite the new power, the Caps failed to make the playoffs in 2002. In the summer of 2002, the Caps, made even more roster changes, including the signing the highly regarded Robert Lang as a free agent.

The Caps were back in the playoffs in 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 Verizon 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 warrenting a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty.

In the early part of 2004, the Caps unloaded a lot of their high-priced talent in order to save money, but also as an acknowledgment that their attempt to build a contender with high-priced veteran talent had failed. Jaromir Jagr was traded to the Rangers, which was quickly followed by Peter 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 NHL that the league's leading scorer was traded in the middle of the season. The Capitals ended the year 23-46-10 with 59 standings points, their worst season in 26 years.

In the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, the Capitals got the first pick and used it on Russian phenom Alexander Ovechkin. During the NHL labor dispute of 2004-05, which cost the NHL its entire season, Ovechkin played in his native Russia along with another Russian rising star, Alexander Semin, who had made his NHL debut as a 19-year-old with the Capitals in 2004. Several other Capitals played part or all of the lost season in Europe, including Olaf Kölzig, Brendan Witt, and Jeff Halpern. The Capitals offseason consisted of making Halpern the team's captain, signing Andrew Cassels, Ben Clymer, Ivan Majesky, Mathieu Biron and Jamie Heward, and acquiring Chris Clark and Jeff Friesen via trade.

Washington's alternate logo; two hockey sticks crossed behind the image of the United States Capitol, with stars flanking it, a hockey puck at the front, and the team's name emblazoned across the Capitol.

The Capitals finished the 2005-2006 NHL in the cellar of the Southeastern Division again, yet with a slight improvement over the 2003-2004 season with a 29-41-12 record and 70 standings points, 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 2/3rds of those games. Ovechkin's rookie season exceeded the hype, as his 52 goals and 106 points both ranked third all-time among NHL rookies and he led all 2005-2006 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 and set an NHL rookie record, but also was the fourth-highest total in NHL history. Ovechkin’s point total was the second best in Washington Capitals history and his goal total was tied for third in franchise history. Many longtime Capitals had career years with Dainius Zubrus netting 57 points, Halpern having a career-best 33 assists, Matt Pettinger put in a career-best 20 goal-38 point effort and seven others on the relatively young team topped 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.

At the 2006 Trade Deadline, March 8, Witt was traded to Nashville.

Season-by-season record

¹ Season was shortened due to the 1994-95 NHL lockout.

² Season was cancelled due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout.