Washington Capitals: Throwback Thursday to championship glory

It’s a special Throwback Thursday Washington Capitals fans.

We’ve started doing these last offseason and picked up on them during the pause in the 2019-20 season and we’ve now reached our final one of the magical 2018 Stanley Cup run. The Washington Capitals achieved the feat two years almost to the day.

The pregame scene started with a Vegas show opener that by now we all got tired of seeing as Caps fans. But the Golden Knight in the fight got knocked down slightly by the opponents, giving us a much better vibe moments before puck drop. Bring it on.

The Caps got on the power play attack and Alex Ovechkin got a look from the office that pinged off the post. The first period would turn out scoreless but in the second the fun really began.

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It was a roller coaster game with ups and downs. Jakub Vrana got the scoring started with a breakaway goal to set the mostly red crowd at T-Mobile Arena to their feet. The Caps fans showed out well in Vegas and back home in D.C. inside and outside of Capital One Arena. Vrana’s goal came on assists from Tom Wilson and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The Golden Knights tied it at 9:40 from none other than Nate Schmidt before the Caps got another power play chance when Ovechkin was tripped up by Brayden McNabb. Of course it was Ovechkin that made them pay with a power play goal from in front of the office on a cross-ice pass from Nicklas Backstrom.

The Golden Knights gave the Caps a slight scare because they didn’t go down without a fight that night. A goal from David Perron at 12:56 tied it and they took the lead at 19:31 with a goal from Reilly Smith. It was 3-2 in favor of the home team heading into the second intermission.

Head coach Barry Trotz gave a good speech as you can see in the All Access video shared here between the periods and it fired them up for what turned out to be the final period of the season. They just had to give it their best and they did just that.

And by now you know the rest. Devante Smith-Pelly tied it with a Bobby Orr-esque type goal off a pass from Brooks Orpik at 9:52. Then at 12:23 Lars Eller banged in a loose puck off a shot from Brett Connolly at 12:23. Andre Burakovsky had the secondary assist.

As the final minutes of the clock ticked off, the scoreboard malfunctioned making the time for the game to end seem longer to those wearing red and white jerseys. Once the clock was back in business, the Caps tried to put it away with an empty net goal but to no avail.

There then became one final draw and as the puck dropped and the clock hit zero we all rejoiced in the fact the Capitals had accomplished what we’ve all wanted to see them do since we became fans. It was a night that will always hold a special place in our heart.

We hope you enjoyed our Throwback Thursday series of the 2018 Stanley Cup run while we wait for hockey to come back. We’ll keep digging through the archives each Thursday as we wait.