Every single time the Pens have won the Cup, they’ve had to take down the Caps. Three of the 4 Cup runs have come with matchups in the second round. Seems fitting.
The Pens have ooooooowwwwwnnnnnnnneddddddd the Caps in the postseason. The history is in the numbers: Pens and Caps have faced each other 9 times in the playoffs. Pens have won 8. 1994 East Quarters are the only loss.
So with Round 10 kicking off tomorrow, we got the staff together to share all of our personal favorite memories in the Pens-Caps postseason history.
Dueling Hat Tricks in Game Two – Pat Damp
I remember it. You remember it. It was the definition of “living up to the hype.”
2009, Eastern Conference Semifinals, Penguins vs. Capitals, the exact reason we watch hockey. Sidney Crosby and the Penguins are looking to get back to the Stanley Cup Final after they watched the Red Wings lift the Stanley Cup on their ice 11 months earlier.
Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals are looking for [and still are lol] their first trip to Eastern Conference Final.
….do I need to describe this further? You were there.
Crosby and Ovechkin both scored in game one in a 3-2 Capitals win at Verizon Center. As the 2009 Stanley Cup DVD put it: “This was just the beginning of their Titanic clash.”
An early first period power play? Sid in Sid’s office. 1-0 Pens.
Not to be outdone, second period, less than three minutes in, Ovechkin from his office, the left circle. Tie game…then that stupid goddamn goal horn.
87 sees Ovechkin’s tying goal and with just over nine minutes to go, uses that big ass to bury one on the doorstep. 2-1 Pens.
If you watched the video above you’ll realize two things: Steckel ties the game, first and foremost, but also, this was before the Penguins broke Varlarmov. It cannot be understated that aside from the brilliance of Crosby and Ovechkin, Varlarmov was damn close to stealing this series.
Case and point from the previous game:
No realistic reason that should’ve been a save. Unreal.
Moving on – if you give Ovi space on the left circle…you’re gonna have a bad time. 3-2 Caps.
Not three minutes later – Ovi, using Sarge as a screen, completes it. 4-2.
Between my mother banishing me and my father to basement after screaming several obscenities at Versus, 87 does what 87 does best: plays baseball on a hockey rink and though it’s under a minute, the Pens pull within one to make it 4-3. Ball game.
I’ve often said that the Pens/Caps series in 2009 put hockey back on the map, because it was all the drama of an NBA series between say LeBron and Curry with an equivalent of the importance.
Ovi and Sid are at most going to have an effect on ⅓ of the game, but in 2009, they were the engines behind both of their teams.
It was a loss, but hindsight being 20/20, shit was it fun.
Straka’s OT Series Clincher in 2001 – Rezzersup
Growing up on the west coast means 90% of my hockey on TV memories involve the NHL on FOX. The only thing that could make this goal more nostalgic for me would be trying to explain to my grandma why the puck was glowing for the 82nd time.
The entire game is such a fascinating time-capsule of early 2000’s hockey. Sergei Gonchar battling Mario, current Habs GM Marc Bergevin playing D for the Pens, Steve Konawalchuk with 2 assists, and the goal scorers for the Pens that night – Mario, Alex Kovalev, Robert Lang and of course Marty Straka.
Most of us could spend a lot of time with a lot of beers just discussing those names with this goal being one of the first to come up.
I still remember being in the little family room that my parents remodeled from a part of our garage. I was fidgeting on the couch nervously, bouncing a tennis ball off the wall and getting yelled at to knock that shit off.
I watched and enjoyed hockey before this, but this was one of the first times I can recall being tense about a game.
Overtime withered on the way it does – going too fast and taking forever at the same time until the Caps set up a breakout, then a drop pass, a misplay, and then the series ended.
There’s so many incredible layers to this goal. The turnover coming from the now Pittsburgh beloved Gonchar who was nearing minute 31 of ice time, tops for the Caps and only outpaced by Mario’s 31:42.
From there, the way Straka pounces is unreal. The awareness to tap the puck behind Gonchar, but not put too much on it so as Kolzig can come out and play it. The way he accelerates away while also re-adjusting his stick to get the blade back down to the ice. Then swooping the puck from his backhand to his forehand and while it’s still bouncing like a freaking tennis ball snipes the top corner.
Finally, the immortal dive onto his belly as Mellon does what only Mellon could do.
Chills.
Luc Robitaille: Sudden Death – Terror Goes into Overtime in 1995 – PenguinsMarch
In hindsight, it was a laughable trade. A broken-down Rick Tocchet (and a 2nd round draft pick) from the Penguins in exchange for durable and productive Los Angeles star winger Luc Robitaille, a perennial 40-goal scorer. Even at the time, the deal immediately raised eyebrows as to who was actually running the Kings.
Regardless, Los Angeles’ loss was Pittsburgh’s gain.
Robitaille’s scoring prowess was a big lift to a Penguins club that was without Mario Lemieux in lockout-shortened 1994-95 when #66 sat out the entire season to recover from recurrent back problems and the after-effects of his cancer treatment.
Pittsburgh and Washington met for the fourth time in five postseasons in their first round series of the 1995 Stanley Cup playoffs.
After splitting Games 1 and 2 in Pittsburgh, the Capitals jumped out to a 3-1 series lead by winning a pair of 6-2 games in Washington. Penguins head coach Eddie Johnston opened the series with Ken Wregget as his starting goaltender but brought in Tom Barrasso to start Game 4. When the Capitals still won, Johnston went back to Wregget to try to stave off elimination in Pittsburgh in Game 5, Mother’s Day afternoon, May 14.
Unfortunately for the home side, it was more of the same at the beginning of the contest when Washington went ahead 2-0. Jaromir Jagr scored a shorthanded goal late in the first period then Kevin Stevens tied the game with a power play goal early in the second. From that point on, the game turned into a back-and-forth, see-saw affair: The Caps and Pens traded goals to end the period tied at 3-3. In the third, Washington went back up 4-3 when the man who led the NHL in regular season goals, Petr Bondra – the talented Slovak winger all Penguins fans respected from a distance – buried one behind Wregget. Just over a minute later, Jagr brought the 16,083 fans at Civic Arena to their feet when he put his second goal of the game past Jim Carey to tie up the game once more. But even before John Barbero could finish announcing the goal to the re-energized crowd, Bondra scored his second of the game just 26 seconds later to give Washington a 5-4 lead.
Would it be enough to finally send the Capitals to the second round?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuV8H6nJgVQ]The clock ticked down on the Penguins season: 11 minutes remaining … then 10 … then 9. Pressing desperately, Stevens came through, scoring his team’s fourth game-tying goal with 8:18 left. Ron Francis earned the primary assist, his fourth helper and fifth point of the afternoon.
The game rolled into overtime. After tallying five points in the first four games of the series, Robitaille was quiet this afternoon. Then, approximately four minutes into OT, he corralled a loose puck in his zone following a Washington scoring chance and rushed up ice. After getting tangled up at the Caps blue line, he let hulking defenceman Francois Leroux take the puck and headed to the slot. Checked against the right half-boards, Leroux one-handed a pass to Robitaille. In a split second, Lucky Luc snapped it toward the far corner of the net. It was his first and only shot of the game.
“I never saw the winning goal. It was a one-timer off the post and it was in the net,” lamented Carey. “Washington kept coming, and we could have given up at any time,” said Robitaille. “But Kevin got the huge goal and then Francois made the big play. This is how you win playoff games.”
Imagine if the Pensblog existed in 1995 in Yahoo Geocities form. Imagine all the great stunned pics of Caps fans you readers would be rushing out to process at a 1-hour express photo store before mailing them to us to scan in time for a blog post in June. The stunned Capitals never recovered. Pittsburgh plattered the Caps 7-1 and 3-0 to complete the comeback in seven games.
But it would not have been possible without Luc Robitaille’s winner in Sudden Death overtime in Game 5.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ0WWaaavKE]1996: Petr Nedved FTW in Game 4’s Fourth OT – Rich
(First, let me start by saying I noticed another site post a “Best Pens-Caps History” thing that came out about six minutes after we announced we were doing this. I wouldn’t care if it didn’t come out looking like they spent exactly six minutes on it. Do better before those erectile dysfunction ads start shriveling up.)
I began watching the Pens during the 1990-91 Cup run. I was only six-years old, but seeing my dad leaping out of his chair for every goal and being able to feel the intensity of the playoffs through the words of Mike Lange are my first real memories of the start of my hockey fandom.
As I began growing up, my love for hockey grew with me. By the time the 1995-96 season rolled around, I knew basically every player on every team. I was playing NHL 95 religiously. I was mailing trading cards to the Civic Arena for my favorite players to sign.
I remember, very vividly, the Washington Capitals being the first team I truly hated. I remember being 12 and wanting to punch Dale Hunter in his big, stupid fucking face. Keith Jones was a scumbag. Peter Bondra made me cringe every time he touched the puck. And my first real memory, as an invested fan, was Petr Nedved driving a fucking dagger into the hearts of the Washington Capitals, and it’s a game I’ll never, ever forget.
Let’s set the stage. The Pens were a powerhouse that season. They finished on top of the Eastern Conference. Mario had 161 points in 70 games after taking the previous season off. Double J and Ronnie Franchise were on top of their games. The defense was good enough. Barrasso and Wregget were sharing time in net, but still a solid tandem. All signs were point directly towards the Pens going deep in the postseason.
Their first round opponent would turn out to be the Caps, who were a sub-.500 team who backed their way into the playoffs. But before you even knew what the hell was happening, the Pens were down 2-0 in the series.
The Pens got four assists from Lemieux to pull out a 4-1 win in Washington for Game 3, but still found themselves down in the series. Then Game 4 changed everything.
The Caps were up 2-0 and things were looking grim. Barrasso left the game in the first after dealing with muscles spasms, and later Lemieux would receive a game misconduct penalty and was tossed from the game.
Double J pulled the Pens within one, then Nedved tied it up on the power play with 12 minutes left in the third. The game would go to overtime with the Pens sans their starting goaltender and best player in history.
From periods four to six, the Caps outshot the Pens 37-12, were getting the better of the power play opportunities, they even had a penalty shot. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before the Caps ended it.
But they didn’t. And speaking of time, it was 2:22 in the morning when Nedved sealed the Caps fate:
The game had lasted 79 minutes 16 seconds of extra time. More than two full games. Only 44 seconds from an eighth period. Maybe a third of the crowd remained — maybe — to see Nedved make his place in Pens-Caps history.
The goal was so pivotal in the series, and the Caps knew it. People forget that Game 5 actually started with a full line brawl:
The Pens would easily win Game 5 and then again take Game 6 to complete the comeback. Of course, the Pens would later lost to the Panthers are their rats in the Eastern Conference Final. But as far a Pens-Caps history goes, the Nedved goal is what comes to mind first for me. It was my first real taste of Pens-Caps and my first glimpse of what I would see a lot of over the years: The Caps choking in the playoffs.
2016: Hornqvist breaks the OT curse in Consol Energy Center I mean PPG Paints – Leah
(graph courtesy of @MikeDarnay)
When the Penguins moved out of their old, faithful, home of Mellon Arena across the street to what was then called Consol Energy Center the phrase was “Destiny has a new home.” Except, destiny certainly didn’t seem to like the Penguins in that home very much. In the first full season in the new arena franchise centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were both shut down for the season by severe injuries. What resulted, you’ll recall, was a ragtag team of Jordan Staal, James Neal and Dustin Jeffery playing for the Penguins that Spring. It was then that people first said the building must’ve been erected on an ancient Indian burial ground because it was a house of horrors for everything from bizarre to truly exhausting injuries that still haunt the team to this day. But not to be outdone by something as silly as health was their truly abysmal record in playoff overtimes there.
From the day the arena, now called PPG Paints Arena, opened it’s doors on August 18, 2011 the team never won a home playoff game there in overtime going into the second round of the 2016 playoffs against the high favored, President’s Trophy winning Washington Capitals. They hadn’t even won a playoff overtime game at all in nearly three years including a stretch of eight straight playoff overtime losses.
There was Jakub Voracek in Game one of the 2012 travesty that was the first round. There was Matt Calvert who brought the Columbus Blue Jackets their first ever franchise playoff win in overtime in 2014. The was Carl Hagelin, ending the Penguins season in 2015 with a Game five overtime goal. Hell, there was T.J. Oshie just days before in game one of the same series netting a hat trick with his game winner in Washington. You said overtime, and most Penguins fans would look like all they wanted was a drink, paper bag to breath into, or both. And no one could blame them.
So when the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins ended regulation of game four tied at then Consol Energy Center, it would have been understandable for Penguins fans to think, oh shit here we go again. Except, the team had something else in mind.
Just about three minutes into the overtime period Conor Sheary threw the puck towards Braden Holtby looking for Sidney Crosby who was hanging out at the top of the goalie’s crease. The puck never made it to Crosby though as Mike Weber, a Pittsburgh native who the Capitals must have acquired from Buffalo for his “it’s a grenade!” puck handling skills, knocked it away from the captain. No first career OT playoff goal for him (yet). Not to worry though, Weber stopped Sheary’s pass then immediately turned it over to Patric Hornqvist who slid into the shot like he was on a walk in the park.
Puck’s in.
Pens win to go up 3-1 in the series.
Party Hard.
The reason this moment is so remarkable though is that it ticked off a pretty necessary box on the list of demons the Penguins had to exercise on their way to that mythical fourth cup. Like beating the Rangers, winning in overtime was one of the bugaboos the Penguins had struggled with since the 2009 cup win (check out the chart above again for a reminder). They would end up needing three additional overtime game winners at home during the run to the promised land that summer including, perhaps most notably of them, the series clinching winner over the same Washington Capitals.
Video:
2009: The Save – Part Deux – G-off
“History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.” – Sydney J. Harris
“History, retire bitch.” – Alex Ovechkin
To this day, I still imagine Gary Bettman having to build a Scrooge McDuckian vault for all the earning over this series.
It was the first ever playoff matchup between Crosby and Ovi. Sid the Kid. The Great 8. Cha. Ching.
The series had it all. Dueling hat tricks from the league’s top two superstars just 2 games into it. Three dramatic overtime games. And, oh yeah, a Game 7 to boot.
Just 50 seconds into OT, Ovi got the Verizon Center crowd on its feet just 50 seconds into the game, putting Bruce Oarpeck on his wallet.
https://gfycat.com/LivelyWickedCottontail
It got the red, raucous crowd going. And two minutes later, on Ovi’s next shift, they were on their feet again. Kunitz-Crosby-Guerin looked like they had something going as 87 stopped up and tried to feed Billy G driving to the net. His chance got broken up and with the Pens pushing forward, Backstrom picked up the loose puck and in one quick swoop, smoked Scuderi and Gill to spring Ovi on a breakaway.
Maybe the best goalscorer to ever play the game, one-on-one with the goalie? If you have a car, you bet it. If you have a house, you bet it. If you have a retirement account, you bet it. If you’re a millennial who can’t afford any of those things, you take a loan out at a ridiculously high interest rate and you bet it because it’s a guaranteed winner.
Except when it’s not.
https://gfycat.com/DemandingSelfassuredHorse
https://gfycat.com/FrenchJadedAuklet
https://gfycat.com/JealousHandmadeAkitainu
For as iconic as Fleury’s save on Nick Lindstrom at the buzzer of Game 7 of the Cup Final was, that shit doesn’t happen without this save. The Penguins don’t get out of Washington alive without this save.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “But G, the Pens would have had 57 more minutes to tie the game back up.”
No.
You do not give up a goal 3 minutes into Game 7, against the home team, against Alex Ovechkin and his excitement and ability to get the blood flowing, and come back.
Fleury’s big save, and subsequent big, shit-eating grin, set the stage for the Birds. And just about 9 minutes later, they scored 2 goals in 8 seconds.
No doubt in my mind that Craig Adams goal is why Sergei Fedorov ran back to Mother Russia. I’d have left the country too.
But they didn’t stop there. Just 28 seconds into the second frame, Billy G slipped them the cyanide capsule less than 2 minutes before Letang ripped their hearts out before the cyanide could take hold.
https://gfycat.com/IncomparableTalkativeIsabellineshrike
That dude knew it was over. We all knew it was over. But this series likely doesn’t end 22:12 into the final game without Fleury’s grand larceny.
2016: Three Delay Of Game Penalties. In A Row. -Cass
Are you a masochist like me? Yes? Great! Now let’s remember when, up 3-2 both in the game and the series, the Pittsburgh Penguins took three straight delay of game penalties against the Washington Capitals late in the third period.
May 10th, 2016. We’re in the third period, the score is 3-2, and the series is 3-2 (both in favor of Pittsburgh.) The Washington Capitals have the Pens hemmed in, and while attempting to clear it, left winger Chris Kunitz sends the puck over the glass from the defensive zone with 9:28 remaining. This is, of course, a textbook delay of game penalty. Time to kill this and preserve the lead!
Haha. No. Not at all.
They weren’t quite scored on, but things got almost just as bad as that. This powerplay by the Washington Capitals was essentially doing everything but getting the puck passed Murray. Repeated chance after chance, a scary amount of offensive zone time and possession. The puck just wouldn’t find a Pittsburgh Penguin stick…that is, until it found defenseman Ian Cole’s stick.
Oooooover the glass with ye. Time to kill 54 seconds of a 5-on-3 Washington Capitals powerplay with 8:22 remaining in the period. Would you believe it, that the Penguins actually killed the 5-on-3?! Out comes Chris Kunitz! We’re back to 5-on-4!
For like…one second. ONE SECOND. That’s all it took for center Nick Bonino to clear the puck…riiiiiiiiight over the boards. Who’s ready for 1:04 of a Washington Capitals 5-on-3 powerplay?! Again?! The Pittsburgh bench was pretty adamant about the fact that this time, it hit a player on the Pens bench. Their calls for no penalty went unheeded, however, as it was time to kill yet another 5-on-3.
With about 37 seconds left on the 2nd consecutive 5-on-3 (due to delay of game penalties), defenseman John Carlson’s slapshot found its way passed goaltender Matt Murray to tie the game up 3-3. The Capitals are elated, the Penguins are deflated, and the Capitals still have 27 seconds left on the powerplay.
It was killed, though. The game went to overtime…and two new teams came out for that overtime. The Pittsburgh Penguins looked like the Washington Capitals (dominant) and the Washington Capitals looked like the Pittsburgh Penguins (chasing the puck in their own end.)
BONINO THE GOAL! BONINO THE GOAL! BONINO THE GOAL! Pens win the game 4-3 off of an HBK line goal (courtesy of Bonino) in overtime, and eliminate the Washington Capitals in six games. I’ll never forget this third period (in addition to to the overtime) due to how many pseudo-heart attacks I had.
If you want to watch the Penguins take three consecutive, overlapping delay of game penalties in a playoff game where they could potentially eliminate the President’s Trophy winners, here it is.
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