On Easter Sunday, April 18-19rd, 1987, the Capitals lost the New York Islanders in Game 7 of in the first round of the playoff. The “Easter Epic”, as it came to be known, ended in the 4th overtime when Isles Pat Lafontaine snuck a shot past Caps netminder Bob Mason. Families that had gathered for Easter dinner all across the DMV and stayed up to watch were crushed. After the season, then general manager David Poile went out and traded for a proven playoff performer in Dale Hunter, a trade that changed the fate of the franchise.
But what if the Caps had won the Easter Epic?
The Capitals have a long a tortured playoff history, and the Easter Epic was a brutal loss for Caps fans to endure. So many people watched that game because it was If the Caps had beaten the Islanders, it would have been the first time in franchise history that they won a seven-game series. However, they would have gone on to face the buzzsaw that was the 1986-87 Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers won the Eastern Conference and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and the dominant Edmonton Oilers. Even if the Capitals had managed to beat the Islnaders, they would have had to beat the Flyers, and then beat the defending champion Montreal Canadiens in the conference finals before they would have had the privilege to be beaten by the Oilers in the Finals.
But, if the Caps had won way back on the Eastern Sunday, perhaps Poile decides the Caps don'Ät need a proven playoff hero and doesn't trade for Hunter. The Hunter trade was a direct result of the loss to the Islanders. Hunter was a playoff stud when he played for the Nordiques, something the Capitals desperately needed. Hunter made an impact in a Capitals sweater the very next year, scoring one of the most famous goals in franchise history to beat the Flyers in Game seven of the 1988 first round series. But if the Caps had won, Poile may not have pulled the trigger on the Hunter trade, which means the Capitals would have held onto their first-round pick, no. 15 overall. The Nordiques used that pick to draft future Hall of Famer and 3-time Stanley Cup winner Joe Sakic.
How different would it have been if they had drafted Sakic? Imagine a team with Scott Stevens, Rod Langway, Larry Murphy, Kevin Hatcher, Mike Gartner, with Sakic. Sakic is one of the all-time greats, finishing with 625 goals and 1052 assists. He would have been the number 1 center the Caps didn’t have until they drafted Nick Backstrom and could have made the Caps a cup contender for the next two decades.
Hunter and the Caps advanced past the first round five times in his first ten years with the club, twice making it to the Eastern Conference Finals, and making to the Stanley Cup finals one time in 1998. While Dale Hunter defined what it meant to be a Capital for the next decade and has his number retired, one can’t help but think if the Caps had drafted Sakic, things may have gone much differently.
Add us as a preferred source on Google