50 Fun Facts About Washington Capitals

The Capitals entered the NHL in 1974 alongside which other expansion team?

Kansas City Scouts lasted only two seasons before moving to Denver as the Colorado Rockies, and the franchise is now the New Jersey Devils.

Which owner, who also owned the NBA's Bullets, founded the Capitals?

Abe Pollin built the Capital Centre in suburban Landover to house both teams, moving his Bullets there from Baltimore.

Which Boston Bruins legend was hired as the Capitals' first general manager?

Milt Schmidt ended up behind the bench himself late in the miserable first season, becoming the team's third head coach in under a year.

What did the 1974-75 Capitals parade after their only road win?

Garbage can, hoisted and paraded like the Stanley Cup: that was the trophy after a 5-3 win in Oakland ended an 0-37 start on the road.

Capitals coach Jim Anderson said he would rather learn what than keep losing?

Anderson would rather find out that his wife was cheating on him: 'At least I could tell my wife to cut it out.' He was fired 54 games into the 8-67-5 first season.

Which country, a 1972 Olympic host, staged four Capitals exhibition games in 1976?

Japan staged two games in Sapporo and two in Tokyo, on a rink laid over an Olympic swimming pool; Washington, winners of only 11 games all season, took three of the four.

Which Capital scored 60 goals in 1981-82?

Dennis Maruk scored 60 goals for a team that still finished last in the Patrick Division and missed the playoffs for an eighth straight year.

What did the 1982 'Save the Caps' campaign urge Capitals fans to do?

Buy season tickets: the owner said he would sell or disband the team unless 7,500 were sold and the first ten home games sold out, and local businesses stepped in to guarantee the sellouts.

Which defenseman, named captain weeks later, arrived from Montreal in David Poile's 1982 blockbuster?

Rod Langway won the Norris Trophy in each of his first two Washington seasons, and a team that had never made the playoffs reached them in all 11 of his years.

Quebec used a 1987 first-round pick acquired from the Capitals to draft which future Hall of Famer?

Joe Sakic went 15th overall with the pick Washington gave up in a draft-day trade, then captained the franchise to two Stanley Cups after it moved to Colorado.

Which two Capitals stars were traded to Minnesota in 1989 for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse?

Mike Gartner and Larry Murphy were dealt at the 1989 deadline for a playoff push; Washington won its first division title, then lost in the first round.

A Capitals forward drew a 21-game suspension in 1993 for a late hit on which Islanders scorer?

Pierre Turgeon had just scored to put the deciding game out of reach when he was checked from behind while celebrating; he separated a shoulder and missed most of the next round.

Which Penguin beat the Capitals with a goal in the fourth overtime of a 1996 playoff game?

Petr Nedved scored with 44.6 seconds left in the fourth overtime of Game 4, levelling a series Washington had led 2-0, and Pittsburgh won it in six.

Which three players did the Capitals get from Boston in 1997 for Jason Allison, Jim Carey and Anson Carter?

Oates, Tocchet and Ranford were meant to rescue the season, but Washington missed the 1997 playoffs anyway and general manager David Poile was fired.

Which team swept the Capitals in the 1998 Stanley Cup Final?

Detroit Red Wings won four straight; in Game 2 Esa Tikkanen missed an open net with Washington leading 4-3, and Detroit rallied to win in overtime.

Which three Capitals each hit their 1,000th career point in 1997-98, an NHL one-season first?

Oates, Housley and Hunter all reached 1,000 within months of each other, and that veteran team went on to the franchise's first Stanley Cup Final.

Ted Leonsis, who bought the Capitals in 1999, made his fortune at which company?

America Online bought Leonsis's own company, Redgate Communications, in 1994 and made him a senior executive, five years before he bought the team.

Which superstar did the Capitals sign for $77 million in 2001?

Jaromir Jagr cost three prospects in a trade, but his scoring fell from 121 points to 79 in his first Washington season and he was dealt to the Rangers in 2004.

After the Capitals won the 2004 draft lottery and took Ovechkin, which player went second overall to Pittsburgh?

Evgeni Malkin went second to Pittsburgh, which had the NHL's worst record that season but lost the draft lottery to Washington.

Ovechkin became the first rookie since whom to score 50 goals in a season?

Teemu Selanne scored a rookie-record 76 goals in 1992-93; Ovechkin's 52 goals and 106 points then beat Sidney Crosby to the Calder Trophy.

Which Hershey Bears coach replaced Glen Hanlon behind the Capitals bench in November 2007 and won the Jack Adams Award?

Bruce Boudreau inherited a 6-14-1 team and steered it to a division title clinched on the season's final day.

Which general manager signed Ovechkin's 13-year, $124 million extension in 2008?

George McPhee had sold off his veteran stars in 2004 to rebuild through the draft; the rebuild's first pick was Ovechkin, whose extension was the NHL's first $100 million deal.

Whose record for goals in a season by a left winger did Ovechkin break with 65 in 2007-08?

Luc Robitaille's 63 had stood since 1992-93, when he carried the Kings as captain while Wayne Gretzky was injured; Ovechkin passed it with two goals on April 3.

Which Capitals defenseman set an NHL record in 2008-09 by scoring in eight straight games?

Mike Green scored 31 goals that season, breaking a 25-year-old streak record on the way, yet finished second in Norris Trophy voting.

Which eighth seed upset the 121-point Presidents' Trophy Capitals in 2010?

Montreal Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak stopped 131 of 134 shots over the last three games as the NHL's top-scoring team blew a 3-1 series lead.

Which Capital's overtime goal in Game 7 eliminated the defending-champion Bruins in 2012?

Joel Ward, never drafted and a Canadian university player until his mid-twenties, ended a series in which all seven games were decided by one goal.

Which Capitals legend took over behind the bench when the coach was fired in November 2011?

Dale Hunter left the junior London Knights, the team he co-owns and coaches, to take the job, then went home to them after one season.

Whose franchise points record did Ovechkin pass in November 2014?

Peter Bondra, whose 825 points stood as the mark, was traded away in the 2004 teardown that landed Washington the draft pick it used on Ovechkin.

Where did the Capitals beat Chicago 3-2 in the 2015 Winter Classic?

Nationals Park, home of baseball's Nationals, saw Troy Brouwer score the winner against his former team with 13 seconds left.

Which winger did the Capitals acquire from St. Louis in 2015 for Troy Brouwer and Pheonix Copley?

T. J. Oshie arrived as the American shootout hero of the 2014 Olympics, where he scored on four of six attempts to beat Russia.

Whose overtime goal in Game 6 of 2018 finally got the Capitals past Pittsburgh?

Evgeny Kuznetsov's overtime winner ended a run of seven straight playoff series lost to Pittsburgh and knocked out the two-time defending champions.

Whom did Washington beat in five games to win the 2018 Stanley Cup?

Vegas Golden Knights were an expansion team in their very first season, yet reached the Final; Washington won it in five for a first Cup, 44 years after joining the NHL.

Which Capitals coach resigned in a contract dispute less than two weeks after winning the 2018 Stanley Cup?

Barry Trotz walked away, joined the Islanders three days later, and knocked Washington out of the 2020 playoffs with his new team.

Which veteran goalie signed with Washington in 2020 but never played a game because of a heart condition?

Henrik Lundqvist, signed after 15 seasons with the Rangers, needed open-heart surgery and retired without ever playing for Washington.

In 2023 Ted Leonsis explored moving the Capitals and Wizards to an arena where in Virginia?

Potomac Yard in Alexandria lost out when Virginia's legislature refused to fund the plan, and D.C. signed a deal keeping both teams downtown until at least 2050.

Ovechkin's record-breaking 895th goal in April 2025 came on the road against which team?

Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin, a fellow Russian, gave up the goal that passed Wayne Gretzky's 894, and Washington still lost the game 4-1.

Which Capital left in 2025 to rejoin Brynas, his old club in Sweden?

Nicklas Backstrom had hip resurfacing surgery in 2022 and played his last NHL game in 2023, then signed with Brynas, where he had played as a teenager.

The Capitals' 1995 redesign, which dropped red, white and blue, put which bird on the crest?

A bald eagle led the 1995 look; when the team went back to red, white and blue in 2007, it kept the bird as a W-shaped shoulder patch.

The three stars in the Capitals logo reintroduced in 2007 represent what?

D.C., Maryland and Virginia, the team's three home markets, get a star each, and the trio also nods to hockey's habit of naming three stars after every game.

Which mascot wears number 00 for the Capitals?

Slapshot arrived in 1995 with the team's darker new look and outlasted it: the uniforms went back to red, white and blue in 2007, but the mascot stayed.

Whose number 7, worn by a defenseman on the 1974-75 expansion team, was the first the Capitals retired?

Yvon Labre scored the first Capitals goal at the Capital Centre and later captained the team; his number was retired in 1981 for contributions the club says went well beyond the rink.

Capital One Arena opened in 1997 under what name?

MCI Center was named for the long-distance phone company; when Verizon bought MCI in 2006, the arena's name changed with it.

Capital One Arena sits atop which Washington Metro station?

Gallery Place puts three Metro lines at the door of the arena, which moved the team downtown in 1997 from suburban Landover.

Which university plays its home games at Capital One Arena alongside the Capitals?

Georgetown's Hoyas followed the Capitals out of the old arena in Landover in 1997, moving their home games back inside the city.

Which trophy had Ovechkin won a record nine times by 2025?

Rocket Richard Trophy number nine, for leading the NHL in goals, was shared with David Pastrnak when the pandemic cut the 2019-20 season short with the two level.

Ovechkin's mother, Tatyana, won two Olympic gold medals in which sport?

Basketball made Tatyana Ovechkina an Olympic champion with the Soviet team in 1976 and 1980, and her son wears No. 8 because it was her number.

Which NHL player was young Ovechkin's idol, whose cards he kept stashed in his room?

Mario Lemieux, the idol whose cards he hoarded, starred for and later owned the Penguins, the team that became Ovechkin's fiercest rival.

Whose goal in the fourth overtime ended the 1987 'Easter Epic' and the Capitals' season?

Pat LaFontaine scored at nearly 2 a.m. on Easter Sunday after goalie Kelly Hrudey had made 73 saves, completing a comeback from 3-1 down in the series.

Which Capitals goalie, born in South Africa, won the Vezina Trophy in 2000?

Olaf Kolzig was born in Johannesburg to German parents, grew up in Canada, and chose to play internationally for Germany.

In which Arlington neighbourhood do the Capitals practise atop a mall's parking garage?

Ballston's rink opened in 2006 on the garage's eighth level, and it doubles as a community rink: the public skates on the same ice where the Capitals train.