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.

The Buffalo Sabres

Photo Credit: https://1000logos.net/buffalo-sabres-logo/

The Sabres along with the Vancouver Canucks, joined the NHL in the 1970-1971 season.  Their first owners were Seymour H. Knox and Northrup Knox, scions of a family long prominent in Western New York and grandsons of the Woolworth’s variety store chain; along with Robert O. Swados, a Buffalo attorney.  On the team’s inaugural board of directors were Robert E. Rich Jr., later the owner of the Buffalo Bisons minor league baseball team; and Geroge W. Strawbridge Jr., an heir to the Campbell Soup Company fortune.  Buffalo had a history of professional hockey; immediately before the Sabres’ establishment, the Buffalo Bisons were a pillar of the American Hockey League (AHL), having existed since 1940 (and before that, another Bisons hockey team played from 1928 to 1936), winning the Calder Cup in their final season. (https://web.archive.org/web/20110307143201/http://forty.sabres.nhl.com/history.asp?year=1967)

Wanting a name other than “bison” (a generic stock name used by Buffalo sports teams for decades), the Knoxes commissioned a name-the-team contest.  With names like “Mugwumps”, “Buzzing Bees” and “Flying Zepplins” being entered, (https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-team-nickname-origins-explained-283976168) the winning choice, “Sabres”, was chosen because Seymour Knox felt a sabre was a weapon carried by a leader, and could be effective on both offence and defense.  The Knoxes tried twice before to get an NHL team, first when the NHL expanded in 1967, and again when they attempted to purchase the Oakland Seals with the intent of moving them to Buffalo.  Their first attempt was thwarted when Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney persuaded his horse racing friends James and Bruce Norris to select Pittsburgh over Buffalo, while the second attempt was due to the NHL not wanting an expansion market to give on a team so soon, nor isolate the Los Angeles Kings (the only NHL team other than the Seals west of St. Louis at the time) from the rest of the NHL entirely.  At the time of their creation, the Sabres exercised their option to create their own AHL farm team, the Cincinnati Swords.  Former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager and head coach Punch Imlach was hired in the same capacity with the Sabres.

The year the Sabres debuted (1970) was an important year for major league sports in Buffalo.  In addition to the Sabres’ debut, the Buffalo Bills officially joined the National Football League (NFL), and the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Buffalo Braves also began to play, sharing the Memorial Auditorium with the Sabres.  The city of Buffalo went from having no teams in the established major professional sports leagues to three in one off-season, a situation that proved to be unsustainable.  Between the Braves and the Sabres, the Sabres would prove to be by far the more successful of the two; Paul Snyder, the nouveau riche Braves owner, publicly feuded with the old-money Knoxes and the local college basketball scene, eventually losing those feuds and being forced to sell his team in 1976.  Subsequent owners of the Braves, in a series of convoluted transactions tied to the ABA-NBA merger, moved the team out of Buffalo.

When the Sabres debuted as an expansion team, they took to the ice to Aram Khachaturian’s Armenian dance, “Sabre Dance”. (https://artvoice.com/2017/11/hockey-sin-city-andrew-kulyk-peter-farrell/#.Ws-U_YjwZuU)  The music has been associated with the team as an unofficial anthem ever since. (https://as.com/videos/2016/07/06/en/1467824254_902709.html)  It is often played between periods and after goals.

The consensus was that the first pick in the 1970 NHL Amateur Draft would be junior phenomenon, Gilbert Perreault.  Either the Sabres or the Canucks would get the first pick, to be determined with the spin of a wheel of fortune.  Perreault was available to the Sabres and Canucks as this was the first year the Montreal Canadiens did not have a priority right to draft Quebec-born junior players.

The Canucks were allocated numbers 1 – 10 on the wheel, while the Sabres had 11 – 20.  When the league president Clarence Campbell spun the wheel, he initially thought the pointer landed on one.  While Campbell was congratulating the Vancouver delegation, Imlach asked Campbell to check again.  As it turned, the pointer was on 11, effectively handing Perreault to the Sabres. (https://archive.org/details/hockeychronicles00tren)  Perreault scored 38 goals in his rookie season of 1970-1971, at the time a record for most goals scored by an NHL rookie, and he received the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year.  Despite Perreault’s play, the Sabres finished well out of playoff contention.

In the team’s second season, 1971-1972, rookie Rick Martin, drafted fifth overall by Buffalo in 1971, and Rene Robert, acquired in a late-season trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins, joined Perreault and would become one of the league’s top forward lines in the 1970s.  Martin broke Perreault’s record at once with 44 rookie goals.  They were nicknamed “The French Connection” after the movie of the same name and in homage to their French-Canadian roots.  The Sabres made the playoff for the first time in 1972-1973, just the team’s third year in the league, but lost in the quarterfinals in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens.

After a subpar year in 1974 that saw them miss the playoffs (as well as ageing defenseman Tim Horton’s death in a DUI-induced car accident), the Sabres tied for the best record in the NHL in the 1974-1975 regular season.  Buffalo advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in team history to play against the rough Philadelphia Flyers (who had been recently named the “Broad Street Bullies”), a series which included the legendary Fog Game (Game 3 of the series).  Due to the unusual heat in Buffalo in May 1975 and the lack of air conditioning in the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, parts of the game were played in heavy fog that made players, officials, and the puck invisible to many spectators.  During a face-off and through the fog, Sabres centre Jim Lorentz spotted a bat flying across the rink, and swung at it with his stick, killing it.  It was the only time that any player killed an animal during an NHL game.  The Sabres won that game thanks to Rene Robert’s goal in overtime.  However, the Flyers would wind up taking the Stanley Cup in six games, winning the series 4-2.

 Here are some photos to go with some of the names mentioned above:

The Philadelphia Flyers

The NHL in Philadelphia before 1967

Before 1967, Philadelphia had only iced a team in the NHL in the 1930-1931 season, when the financially struggling Pittsburgh Pirates relocated in 1930 as the Philadelphia Quakers, playing at The Arena at 46th and Market Streets. The club, garbed in orange and black like today’s Flyers, was coached by Cooper Smeaton, who was to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame 30 years later, for his far more notable role as an NHL referee. Among the young Quakers’ skaters in 1930-1931 was another future Hall of Famer 19-year-old rookie center Syd Howe. The Quakers’ only “claim to fame” was to establish a single-season NHL record for futility which has stood ever since, by compiling a dismal record of 4-36-4, still the fewest ever won in a season by an NHL club. The Quakers quietly suspended operations after that single dreadful campaign to again leave the Can-Am League’s Philadelphia Arrows as Philadelphia’s lone hockey team. The Quakers’ dormant NHL franchise was finally canceled by the league in 1936 (https://hockeyscoop.net/ahlphl/index.html#Quakers) (https://www.nytimes.com/1931/09/27/archives/two-sextets-out-of-hockey-league-ottawa-and-philadelphia-agree-to.html).

In 1946, a group led by Montreal and Philadelphia sportsman Len Peto announced plans to put another NHL team in Philadelphia, to build a 2.5 million dollar rink to seat 20,000 where the Phillies’ former ballpark (the Baker Bowl) stood at Broad and Huntingdon Streets, and to acquire the franchise of the old Montreal Maroons ("Peto Sure He Can Build Arena in Time; National Hockey League Weighs Club Here". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. March 31, 1946. p. 31.). The latter was held by the Canadian Arena Company, owner of the Montreal Canadiens. However, Peto’s group was unable to raise funding for the new arena project by the league-imposed deadline, and the NHL canceled the Maroons franchise.

While attending a basketball game on November 29th, 1964, at the Boston Garden, Ed Snider, the then-vice-president of the Philadelphia Eagles, observed a crowd of Boston Bruins fans lining up to purchase tickets to see a last-place hockey team (https://flyershistory.net/cgi-bin/hofprof.cgi?005). He began making plans for a new arena upon hearing the NHL was looking to expand due to fears of a competing league taking hold on the West Coast and the desire for a new television contract in the United States. Snider made his proposal to the league, which chose the Philadelphia group – including Snider, Bill Putnam, Jerome Schiff, and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jerry Wolman – over the Baltimore group.

The Early Years (1967-1971)

The new teams were hampered by restrictive rules that kept all major talent with the “Original Six” teams. In the NHL Expansion Draft, most of the players available were either aging veterans or career minor-leaguers before expansion occurred. Among the Flyers’ 20 selections were Bernie Parent, Doug Favell, Bill Sutherland, Ed Van Impe, Joe Watson, Lou Angotti, Leon Rochefort, and Gary Dornhoefer. Having purchased the minor-league Quebec Aces, the team had a distinctly francophone flavor in its early years, with Parent, Rochefort, Andre Lacroix, Serge Bernier, Jean-Guy Gendron, Simon Nolet, and Rosaire Paiement among others. Beginning play in 1967 – 1968, the Philadelphia Flyers made their debut on October 11, 1967, losing 5-1 on the road to the California Seals (https://www.flyershistory.net/cgi-bin/hm.cgi?001hm). They won their first game a week later, defeating the St. Louis Blues on the road. 2-1 (https://www.flyershistory.net/cgi-bin/hm.cgi?002hm). The Flyers made their home debut in front of a crowd of 7,812, shutting out their intrastate rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1-0 on October 19 (https://www.flyershistory.net/cgi-bin/hm.cgi?003hm). Lou Angotti was named the first captain in Flyers history, while Rochefort was the Flyers' top goal scorer after netting a total of 21 goals. With all six expansion teams grouped into the same division, the Flyers were able to win the division with a sub-.500 record despite being forced to play their last seven home games on the road due to a storm blowing parts of the Spectrum’s roof off. However, playoff success did not come so quickly, as the Flyers were upset by St. Louis in a first-round, seven-game series.

Angotti left the team in the off-season, being replaced by Van Impe as team captain. Led by Van Impe and the team-leading 24 goals of Andre Lacroix, the Flyers struggled during their sophomore season by finishing 15 games under .500. Despite their poor regular season showing in 1968 – 1969, the made the playoffs. They lost again to St. Louis, this time being dispatched in a four-game sweep. Not wanting his team to be physically outmatched again, majority owner Ed Snider instructed general manager Bud Polie to acquire bigger, tougher players. While head coach Keith Allen soon after replaced Polie as general manager, this mandate eventually led to one of the most feared teams to ever take the ice in the NHL. The keystone of those teams was acquired when the Flyers took a chance on a 19-year-old diabetic from Flin Flon, Manitoba, Bobby Clarke, with their second draft pick, 17th overall, in the 1969 NHL Amateur Draft. Keeping Snider’s mandate, the team also drafted future enforcer Dave Schultz 52nd overall.

By the time training camp came around, it was clear that Clarke was the team’s best player, and he quickly became a fan favorite. His 15 goals and 31 assists in his rookie season earned him a trip to the NHL All-Star Game. Despite his arrival, the team struggled in 1969 – 1970, recording only 17 wins – the fewest in franchise history and setting the NHL team record for the most ties in a season (24). They lost the tiebreaker for the final playoff spot to the Oakland Seals, missing the playoffs for the first time.

Here are the first-round draft picks from 1967 – 2023:

· 1967: Serge Bernier (5th overall)
· 1968: Lew Morrison (8th overall)
· 1969: Bob Currier (6th overall)
· 1971: Larry Wright (8th overall) & Pierre Plante
             (9th overall).
· 1972: Bill Barber (7th overall)
· 1975: Mel Bridgman (1st overall)
· 1976: Mark Suzor (17th overall)
· 1977: Kevin McCarthy (17th overall)
· 1978: Behn Wilson (6th overall) & Ken Linseman
            (7th overall) & Danny Lucas (14th overall)
· 1979: Brian Propp (14th overall)
· 1980: Mike Stothers (21st overall)
· 1981: Steve Smith (16th overall)
· 1982: Ron Sutter (4th overall)
· 1985: Glen Seabrooke (21st overall)
· 1986: Kerry Huffman (20th overall)
· 1987: Darren Rumble (20th overall)
· 1988: Claude Boivin (14th overall)
· 1990: Mike Ricci (4th overall)
· 1991: Peter Forsberg (6th overall)
· 1992: Ryan Sittler (7th overall)
· 1995: Brian Boucher (22nd overall)
· 1996: Dainius Zubrus (15th overall)
· 1998: Simon Gagne (22nd overall)
· 1999: Maxime Ouellet (22nd overall)
· 2000: Justin Williams (28th overall)
· 2001: Jeff Woywitka (27th overall)
· 2002: Joni Pitkanen (4th overall)
· 2003: Jeff Carter (11th overall) & Mike Richards
            (24th overall)
· 2005: Steve Downie (29th overall)
· 2006: Claude Giroux (22nd overall)
· 2007: James van Riemsdyk (2nd overall)
· 2008: Luca Sbisa (19th overall)
· 2011: Sean Couturier (8th overall)
· 2012: Scott Laughton (20th overall)
· 2013: Samuel Morin (11th overall)
· 2014: Travis Sanheim (17th overall)
· 2015: Ivan Provorov (7th overall) & Travis Konecny
            (24th overall)
· 2016: German Rubtsov (22nd overall)
· 2017: Nolan Patrick (2nd overall) & Morgan Frost
            (27th overall)
· 2018: Joel Farabee (14th overall) & Jay O'Brien
            (19th overall)
· 2019: Cam York (14th overall)
· 2020: Tyson Foerster (23rd overall)
· 2022: Cutter Gauthier (5th overall)
· 2023: Matvei Michkov (7th overall) & Oliver Bonk
            (22nd overall).