Washington Capitals: A Look Back At The 2009-2010 Season
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
The Washington Capitals are beginning their 41st season as a franchise in 2015. To honor the Washington Capitals of the past, we’re taking a look back and reviewing each season the Capitals have had here in our nation’s capital. Today, we take a look at their most successful regular season team ever that still wound up breaking fans’ hearts: the 2009-2010 Washington Capitals.
Washington Capitals Regular Season
The 2009-2010 season was the height of the “Rock The Red” era of Caps hockey. The team improved upon their 2008-2009 team by adding several key players in free agency. They signed former Flyers forward Mike Knuble to a two year deal and added forward Brendan Morrison to a one year deal. Both would be productive for the Caps that season. Even with the departures of Sergei Fedorov and Viktor Kozlov (both to the KHL), the Caps looked like sure Stanley Cup contenders.
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The 2009-2010 regular season was an example of a perfect storm for the Washington Capitals. They had seven players (Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin, Mike Green, Brooks Laich, Mike Knuble and Tomas Fleischman) with more than 50 points during the regular season. The Caps set franchise records with 54 regular season wins, a 65.9% winning percentage, a 73.8% point percentage and 121 points. They also set a franchise record in fewest regulation losses (15).
They might have lacked in grit and had no true enforcer, but they were an extremely skilled team that bulldozed teams throughout the regular season. For the first time in franchise history, the Caps won the President’s Trophy as the best regular season team in the NHL. They scored an outstanding 317 goals during the regular season thanks to eight players (Ovechkin, Semin, Backstrom, Knuble, Laich, Fleischmann, Eric Fehr and Green) each scoring at least 15 goals a piece.
The 2009-2010 Washington Capitals had three of the top 20 goal scorers, three of the top 10 players in assists, and four in the top 20 in points. The Caps also had a franchise record 14 game winning streak, the highlight of the regular season.
Another reason why the 2009-2010 season is notable: Ovechkin became the Caps captain after former captain Chris Clark and Milan Jurcina were shipped off to Columbus in exchange for forward Jason Chimera. They also added Scott Walker, Jurcina, Eric Belanger and Joe Corvo at the trade deadline. The Washington Capitals looked to be on the highway to their first Stanley Cup. So how did this team NOT win the Stanley Cup? Let’s find out!
Washington Capitals Post-Season
As the number one seed in the Eastern Conference, the Washington Capitals faced off against the eighth seed, the Montreal Canadiens. The Caps were the obvious favorites, having steamrolled through teams in the regular season. Plus, the Canadiens had barely made the playoffs to begin with. Montreal managed to upset the Caps in Game One 3-2 in overtime, thanks to an impressive performance in net by Jaroslav Halak (making 45 saves) and Tomas Plekanec‘s game winning goal.
The Washington Capitals would come back strong, winning the next three games by a combined score of 17-9. The Caps seemed to be in a perfect position with Montreal in the midst of a goalie controversy between Halak and Carey Price. However, that’s when Halak broke the Washington Capitals hearts by putting together three of the most impressive playoff performances ever, limiting the high scoring Caps that kept flooding him with shots to just three goals over the last three games of the series.
Washington Capitals Roster
So what can the Washington Capitals learn from the 2009-2010 team?
- Having a good goaltender is key.
- You can have all the skilled guys in the world, but it means nothing if they can’t get things done when it matters.
- The side effects of having forward depth include but are not limited to:
- Lots of goals
- Excitement
- Dominating your opponents
- To win a Stanley Cup, you must have more than just pure skill. You’ve also got to have that right amount of grit and, yes, get a little lucky as well.
The ending wasn’t pretty, but I’ll never forget the 2009-2010 Washington Capitals. What an exciting team!
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