The Bird
Celebrating for whatever reason does not do well in some sports, like baseball and hockey. You flip your bat in baseball you’re getting beaned during your next at bat. You celebrate too big in hockey you’ll get called out by the old talking heads like Don Cherry.
If you celebrate in a way that ticks off other players you’ll get mocked or have that celebration thrown right back at you. Like the Columbus Blue Jackets did last year.
You can say what you want about the celebration itself. I personally think it looks weird and prefer he didn’t do it, but I didn’t score that big goal, do what you want. His daughter apparently loves when he does it, then do it. Kuznetsov has his priorities in order there. His family likes it, I’m sure he team loves it and the Capitals fans love it. That’s all that matters. It’s just another reason he’s loved in D.C.
“The Demons Have Been Exorcised”
Winning the Stanley Cup will force your way into the memory of the fans forever. Still, you might forget some names after a while or just flat out forget someone for random reasons. I doubt anybody will be forgetting the name Kuznetsov thanks to this moment.
You can talk all you want about winning the Stanley Cup, that’s obviously the biggest thing you can do in this sport. But that moment possibly doesn’t happen without Kuznetsov’s overtime winner vs. the Penguins.
The Capitals could not get past the second round during the Ovechkin era and maybe even worse than that fact is they couldn’t get past their arch rival Penguins. That changed in the matter of seconds thanks to number 92.
Winning the Cup is the best memory, but this has to be a close second for nearly every Capitals fan out there. It’s one of the biggest moments of the franchise and it’s a big reason he’s a Washington Capitals fan favorite.