The Washington Capitals

The NHL awarded an expansion franchise to the city of Washington on June 8, 1972, and the Capitals joined the NHL as an expansion team for the 1974 -1975 season along with the Kansas City Scouts.  The Capitals were owned by Abe Pollin (also the owner of the NBA’s Washington Bullets/Wizards).  Pollin had built the Capital Centre in suburban Landover, Maryland, to house both the Bullets (who formerly played in Baltimore) and the Capitals.  His first act as owner was to hire Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt as general manager.

With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the World Hockey Association (WHA), the available talent was stretched thin.  The Capitals had few players with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the long-standing teams that were stocked with veteran players.

The Capitals’ inaugural season was dreadful, even by expansion standards.  They finished with the worst record in the league at 8-67-5; their 21 points were half that of their expansion brethren, the Scouts.  The eight wins are the fewest for an NHL team playing at least 70 games, and the .131 winning percentage is still the worst in NHL history.  They also set records for most road losses (39 out of 40), most consecutive road losses (37), and most consecutive losses (17).  Head coach Jim Anderson said, “I’d rather find out my wife was cheating on me than keep losing like this.  At least I could tell my wife to cut it out.”  Schmidt himself had to take over the coaching reins late in the season.

In 1975 – 1976, Washington went 25 straight games without a win and allowed 394 goals en route to another horrendous record: 11-59-10 (32 points).  In the middle of the season, Schmidt was replaced as general manager by Max McNab and as head coach by Tom McVie.  For the rest of the 1970s and early 1980s, the Capitals alternated between dreadful seasons and finishing only a few points out of the Stanley Cup playoffs; in 1980 and 1981, for instance, they were in playoff contention until the last day of the season.  The one bright spot during these years of futility was that many of McNab’s draft picks (e.g. Rick Green, Ryan Walter, Mike Gartner, Bengt Gustafsson, Gaetan Duchesne, and Bobby Carpenter) would impact the team for years to come, either as important members of the roster or as crucial pieces in major trades.

Pollin stuck it out through the Capitals’ first decade, even though they were usually barely competitive.  This stood in contrast to the Scouts; they were forced to move to Denver after only two years because their original owners did not have the resources or patience to withstand the struggles of an expansion team.  By the summer of 1982, however, there was serious talk of the team moving out of the U.S. capital, and a “Save the Caps” campaign was underway.

Gartner-Langway era (1982 – 1993)

In August 1982, the team hired David Polie as general manager (https://www.nhl.com/capitals/news/caps-history-the-hiring-of-david-poile-286255168).  As his first move, Polie pulled off one of the largest trades in franchise history on September 9^th, 1982, when he dealt longtime regulars Ryan Walter and Rick Green to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Rod Langway (named captain only a few weeks later)), Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis, and Craig Laughlin.  This move turned the franchise around, as Langway’s solid defense helped the team to dramatically reduce its goals-against, the explosive goal-scoring of Dennis Maruk, Mike Gartner, and Bobby Carpenter fueled the offensive attack.  Another significant move was the drafting of defenseman Scott Stevens during the 1982 NHL Entry Draft (the pick was made by interim general manager Roger Crozier, prior to Poile’s hiring).  The result was a 29-point jump, a third place finish in the powerful Patrick Division, which had teams such as the high-powered Islanders, Flyers, and Rangers.  Another result was the team’s first playoff appearance in 1983.  Although they were eliminated by the three-time defending (and eventual) Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders (three games to one), the Caps’ dramatic turnaround ended any talk of the club leaving Washington.

 Fourteen consecutive playoff appearances (1983 – 1996)

The Capitals would make the playoffs for each of the next 14 years in a row, becoming known for starting slow before catching fire in January and February.  However, regular season success did not carry into the playoffs.  Despite a continuous march of stars like Gartner, Carpenter, Langway, Gustafsson, Stevens, Mike Ridley, Dave Christian, Dino Ciccarelli, Larry Murphy, and Kevin Hatcher, Washington was knocked out in either the first or second round seven years in a row.  In 1985 – 1986, for instance, the Caps finished with 107 points and won 50 games for the first time in franchise history, good enough for the third-best record in the NHL.  They defeated the Islanders in the first round but were eliminated in the second round by the New York Rangers.

The 1986 – 1987 season brought even more heartbreak, with a loss to the Islanders in the Patrick Division Semifinals.  This series was capped off by the classic Easter Epic game, which ended at 1:56 am on Easter Sunday 1987.  The Capitals had thoroughly dominated most of the game, outshooting the Islanders 75-52, but lost in overtime when goaltender Bob Mason was beaten on a Pat LaFontaine shot from the blue line.  For the 1989 playoff push, Gartner and Murphy were traded to the Minnesota North Stars in exchange for Ciccarelli and defenseman Bob Rouse.  However, the goaltending once again faltered and they were eliminated in the first round by the Philadelphia Flyers.  The Capitals finally made the Wales Conference Finals in 1990 but went down in a four-game sweep at the hands of the first-place Boston Bruins.

Bondra-Gonchar era (1993 – 2005)

From 1991 to 1996, the Capitals would lose in either the first or second round of the playoffs.  They would eliminate the Rangers in the first round but lost the second round to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991.  In 1992 and 1993, they would lose in the first round to the Penguins and the Islanders respectively.  In 1994, they won their first-round series against the Penguins but lost in the second round to the Rangers.  In 1995 and 1996, they lost in the first round both times to the Penguins.  They would miss the playoffs in 1997 but came close to winning their first Stanley Cup one year later.

 First Stanley Cup Finals Appearance (1998)

In 1998, as the Caps opened MCI Center, Peter Bondra’s 52 goals led the team, veterans Dale Hunter, Joe Juneau, and Adam Oates returned to old form, and Olaf Kolzig had a solid .920 save percentage as the Caps got past the Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres (the latter on a dramatic overtime win in game six on a goal by Joe Juneau) en route to the team’s first Stanley Cup Finals appearance.  The Capitals won six overtime games, three in each of their series against the Bruins and Sabres.  However, the team was outmatched by defending champions, the Detroit Red Wings, who won in a four-game sweep.  That same season, Oates, Phil Housley, and Hunter all scored their 1,000^th career point, the only time in NHL history that one team had three players reach that same milestone in a single season.

 Disappointments and rebuilding (1998 – 2004)

After their 1998 championship run, the Capitals finished the 1998 – 1999 season with a record of 31-45-6 and failed to qualify for the playoffs.  During the season, the team was sold to a group headed by AOL executive Ted Leonsis.  The Capitals went on to win back-to-back Southwest Division titles in 2000 and 2001, yet both years lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Penguins.  After the 2000 – 2001 season, Adam Oates demanded a trade but management refused and stripped him of his team captaincy.

In the summer of 2001, the Capitals landed five-time Art Ross Trophy winner Jarmoir Jagr, by trading three young prospects to the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Jagr was signed to the largest contract ever in NHL history -- $77 million over seven years at an average salary of $11 million per year (over $134,000 per game), with an option for an eighth year.  However, after Adam Oates was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, the Capitals failed to defend their division title and missed the playoffs in 2002 despite a winning record.  Still, the 2001 – 2002 season marked the highest attendance in franchise history, drawing in 710,990 fans and 17,341 per game.

Before the 2002 – 2003 season, the Caps made more roster changes, including the signing of highly regarded Robert Lang as a free agent, a linemate of Jagr’s from Pittsburgh.  Washington returned to the playoffs in 2003, but disappointed fans again by losing in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning after starting off with a two-game lead in the best-of-seven first-round series.  The series is well-remembered for the three-overtime Game 6 at the then-MCI Center.  At the time it was the longest game in the building’s history and was eventually decided by a power-play goal by Tampa Bay.

In the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, the Capitals won the Draft Lottery, moving ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who held the NHL’s worst record, and selected Alexander Ovechkin first overall.  During the NHL labor dispute of 2004 – 2005, which cost the NHL its entire season, Ovechkin stayed in Russia, playing for Dynamo Moscow.  Several other Capitals played part or all of the lost season in Europe, including Olaf Kolzig, Brendan Witt, Jeff Halpern, and Alexander Semin.  The Capitals’ 2005 off-season consisted of making D.C.-area native Halpern the team’s captain, signing Andrew Cassels, Ben Clymer, Mathieu Biron and Jamie Heward,  and acquiring Chris Clark and Jeff Friesen via trade.