We all know the Washington Capitals lifted the Stanley Cup in 2018 but prior to that the team's best glory came in the regular season. In this piece we'll look at the Caps teams that went on the longest winning streak.
For this exercise we'll do the top 5 with the year and the winning streak number: 2009-10: 14, 1983-84: 10, 2010-11, 2015-16, and 2016-17: 9.
No surprises here. That 2009-10 team was fun and we all know how good that team was in the young years of the Alex Ovechkin and Young Guns/Rock the Red era. In 1983-84, the Caps finished second in the Patrick Division as it went from Jan. 27, 1984 to Feb. 17. In that 2009-10 season it spanned from Jan. 13 through Feb. 7, 2010.
The other three years were interesting ones. 2010-11 also saw the Capitals drop seven in a row. The nine game hot streak came from Feb. 26, 2011 through March 15, 2011. That was the year after the playoff defeat and everyone thought this year was going to be different thanks to the new defensive style they were playing. The year before that was all offensive wheelhouse.
2015-16 and 2016-17 were back to back Presidents Trophy years which ended in back to back second round defeats. The former came from Dec. 12 through Dec. 30, 2015. The next year it was from Dec. 31, 2016 through Jan. 15, 2017. That included beating a team on a 16 game winning streak in the Columbus Blue Jackets.
If there's anything similar besides those playoff outcomes it was this, it was the Caps got hot around the holidays but cooled off even when they swung for the fences. Thank goodness we still had 2018 which will forever be the best spring ever. But it would be cool to do it again.