Washington Capitals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Washington Capitals
Conference	Eastern
Division	Southeast
Founded	1974
History	Washington Capitals 1974-present
Arena	Verizon Center
City	Washington, D.C.
Local Media Affiliates	Comcast SportsNet News Channel 8 WTEM (980 AM)
Team Colors	Black, Blue, and Bronze
Owner	Ted Leonsis
General Manager	George McPhee
Head Coach	Glen Hanlon
Captain	Chris Clark
Minor League Affiliates	Hershey Bears (AHL) South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL)
Stanley Cups	none
Conference Championships	1997-98
Division Championships	1988-89, 1999-00, 2000-01

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

[edit] Franchise history

The original Capitals logo, used from 1974-95.

[edit] Expansion trouble

Along with the Kansas City Scouts, the Capitals joined the National Hockey League as an expansion team for the 1974-75 season. With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the rival World Hockey Association, both the Capitals and the Scouts had few players with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the long-standing teams that were stocked with more experienced players. 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.

The Capitals did not fare much better through the rest of the 1970s and early 80s. 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.

[edit] 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 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 these new players helped the team reach the playoffs for the first time in 1983. In addition, the Caps were also helped by the explosive goal-scoring of Dennis Maruk, Mike Gartner, and Bobby Carpenter. Although they were swept by the eventual and three-time-defending Stanley Cup Champion New York Islanders, their first ever playoff appearance helped the team remain in Washington.

The Capitals 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 Caps, though always a contender in the regular season, could never shake off their reputation for being "chokers" in the playoffs. Particularly painful was a loss to the Islanders in the 1987 Patrick Division Semifinal, a series which ended with the classic Easter Epic game. Despite a continuous march of stars like Gartner, Carpenter, Bengt Gustafsson, Mike Ridley, Dave Christian, Dino Ciccarelli, Langway, Larry Murphy 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. Gartner had been traded to the Minnesota North Stars in 1989.

[edit] Lost chances

By the mid-1990s, the Capitals seemed to fritter away whatever chance they had at lifting Lord Stanley's Mug. Despite having rising stars in right-winger Peter Bondra, defenseman Sergei Gonchar, and center/left-wing Joé Juneau, 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 enforcer Dale Hunter was suspended 21 games for a late hit on the Isles' Pierre Turgeon after he had just scored the series-winning goal.

Then in 1998, Peter Bondra's 52 goals led the team, veterans Juneau and Adam Oates returned to old form, and Olaf Kolzig 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 Six) en route to the team's first (and to date, only) Stanley Cup finals appearance. However, the team was no match for the defending champs, the 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 five-time Art Ross Trophy winner Jaromir Jagr, one of the best players in the NHL in the 1990s, from Pittsburgh. 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, also from Pittsburgh.

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 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 early part of 2004, the Caps unloaded a lot of their high-priced talent in order to save money — 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 was traded to the New York Rangers, which 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 wins-46 regulation losses-10 overtime losses/ties with 59 standings points, their worst season in 26 years.

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.

In the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, the Capitals beat the Pens to 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 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, Ivan Majesky, Mathieu Biron and Jamie Heward, and acquiring Chris Clark and Jeff Friesen via trade.

The Capitals finished the 2005-06 NHL season in the cellar of the Southeastern Division again, yet with a slight improvement over the 2003-04 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 2/3 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 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 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.

In the 2006 offseason, Halpern left the Capitals to join the Dallas Stars; Chris Clark became the Capitals' new captain. Alexander Semin returned to the team after spending a year in Russia; he scored a hat trick in his second game back with the Capitals. Richard Zednik returned to the Capitals in 2006-07 after a "disappointing" 16-goal, 14-assist 2005-06 in Montreal; the Capitals also signed former Ottawa Senators defenseman Brian Pothier and enforcer Donald Brashear.

[edit] Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses/SOL = Shootout Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Records as of December 2, 2006. ^[1]

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

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

³ As of the 2005-06 NHL season, all games will have a winner; the OTL column includes SOL (Shootout losses).

[edit] Notable players

[edit] Current roster

As of December 4, 2006. [1]

Goaltenders
#		Player	Catches	Acquired	Place of Birth
1		Brent Johnson	L	2005	Farmington, Michigan
37		Olaf Kölzig	L	1989	Johannesburg, South Africa

Defensemen
#		Player	Shoots	Acquired	Place of Birth
2		Brian Pothier	R	2006	New Bedford, Massachusetts
4		John Erskine	L	2006	Kingston, Ontario
6		Jamie Heward (IR)	R	2005	Regina, Saskatchewan
26		Shaone Morrisonn	L	2004	Vancouver, British Columbia
44		Steve Eminger	R	2002	Woodbridge, Ontario
47		Bryan Muir	L	2005	Winnipeg, Manitoba
52		Mike Green	R	2004	Calgary, Alberta

Forwards
#		Player	Position	Shoots	Acquired	Place of Birth
8		Alexander Ovechkin	LW	R	2004	Moscow, USSR
9		Dainius Zubrus - A	C	L	2001	Elektrenai, USSR
10		Matt Bradley	RW	R	2005	Stittsville, Ontario
15		Boyd Gordon	C	R	2002	Unity, Saskatchewan
16		Brian Sutherby - A	C	L	2000	Edmonton, Alberta
17		Chris Clark - C	RW	R	2005	South Windsor, Connecticut
18		Matt Pettinger	LW	L	2000	Edmonton, Alberta
20		Richard Zednik (Injured)	LW/RW	L	2006	Banska Bystrica, Czechoslovakia
21		Brooks Laich	C	L	2004	Wawota, Saskatchewan
27		Ben Clymer	LW	R	2005	Bloomington, Minnesota
28		Alexander Semin	LW	R	2002	Krasnoyarsk, USSR
38		Jakub Klepis	C	R	2004	Prague, Czech Republic
87		Donald Brashear	LW	L	2006	Bedford, Indiana

[edit] Team captains

[edit] Hall of Famers

• Mike Gartner, RW, 1979-89, inducted 2001
• Rod Langway, D, 1982-93, inducted 2002
• Larry Murphy, D, 1984-89, inducted 2004

[edit] Retired numbers

• 5 Rod Langway, D, 1982-93, number retired November 26, 1997
• 7 Yvon Labre, D, 1974-81, number retired November 22, 1980
• 32 Dale Hunter, C, 1987-99, number retired March 11, 2000
• 99 Wayne Gretzky, number retired league-wide February 6, 2000

Langway and former team owner Abe Pollin are the only Capitals figures honored on the Washington Hall of Stars, a series of banners honoring D.C. sports figures on the right-field wall at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.

[edit] First-round draft picks

[edit] Franchise scoring leaders

These are the top-ten 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

[edit] NHL awards and trophies

[edit] Franchise individual records

• Most Goals in a season: Dennis Maruk, 60 (1981-82)
• Most Assists in a season: Dennis Maruk, 76 (1981-82)
• Most Points in a season: Dennis Maruk, 136 (1981-82)
• Most Penalty Minutes in a season: Alan May, 339 (1989-90)
• Most Points in a season, defenseman: Larry Murphy, 81 (1986-87)
• Most Points in a season, rookie: Alexander Ovechkin, 106 (2005-06)

[edit] Facilities

In fall 2006, a twin sheet ice skating rink opened atop the Ballston Common Mall in Arlington County, Virginia. The new rinks, the Capitals Ice Center, are the Washington Capitals practice facility. ^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ Hockeydb.com, Washington Capitals season statistics and records.
2. ^ Capitalsicecenter.com, Capitals Ice Center

[edit] See also

• List of Washington Capitals players
• Head Coaches of the Washington Capitals
• List of NHL players
• List of NHL seasons

[edit] External links

• Official website of the Washington Capitals