Washington Capitals Trivia
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50 free Washington Capitals trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Washington Capitals opened with the worst season in NHL history, needed a 'Save the Caps' campaign to stay in town, and spent decades blowing 3-1 series leads before Alexander Ovechkin finally lifted the Stanley Cup in 2018 and later passed Wayne Gretzky's goal record. This Capitals trivia quiz covers all of it: Abe Pollin and the Capital Centre, the 8-67-5 season, the Langway trade, the Easter Epic, the Joe Sakic pick that became Dale Hunter, the 1998 Final, Jaromir Jagr's record contract, the Ovechkin lottery, Bruce Boudreau, three Presidents' Trophies, Barry Trotz and the run through Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Vegas. Questions run from easy ones any fan should know to hard ones about the 1976 tour of Japan, the screaming eagle jerseys, the three-stars logo, Slapshot the mascot and the only NHL season in which three teammates hit 1,000 points. There are questions on Capital One Arena, the Winter Classics and the rivalries too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedic and reference sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation. For more, try our NHL trivia and hockey trivia pages.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Capitals entered the NHL in 1974 alongside which other expansion team?
Kansas City Scouts
Kansas City Scouts lasted only two seasons before moving to Denver as the Colorado Rockies, and the franchise is now the New Jersey Devils.
Q 02Which owner, who also owned the NBA's Bullets, founded the Capitals?
Abe Pollin
Abe Pollin built the Capital Centre in suburban Landover to house both teams, moving his Bullets there from Baltimore.
Q 03Which Boston Bruins legend was hired as the Capitals' first general manager?
Milt Schmidt
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.
Q 04What did the 1974-75 Capitals parade after their only road win?
Garbage can
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.
Q 05Capitals coach Jim Anderson said he would rather learn what than keep losing?
That his wife was cheating on him
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.
Q 06Which country, a 1972 Olympic host, staged four Capitals exhibition games in 1976?
Japan
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.
Q 07Which Capital scored 60 goals in 1981-82?
Dennis Maruk
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.
Q 08What did the 1982 'Save the Caps' campaign urge Capitals fans to do?
Buy season tickets
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.
Q 09Which defenseman, named captain weeks later, arrived from Montreal in David Poile's 1982 blockbuster?
Rod Langway
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.
Q 10Quebec used a 1987 first-round pick acquired from the Capitals to draft which future Hall of Famer?
Joe Sakic
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.
Q 11Which two Capitals stars were traded to Minnesota in 1989 for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse?
Mike Gartner and Larry Murphy
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.
Q 12A Capitals forward drew a 21-game suspension in 1993 for a late hit on which Islanders scorer?
Pierre Turgeon
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.
Q 13Which Penguin beat the Capitals with a goal in the fourth overtime of a 1996 playoff game?
Q 21Which Hershey Bears coach replaced Glen Hanlon behind the Capitals bench in November 2007 and won the Jack Adams Award?
Bruce Boudreau
Bruce Boudreau inherited a 6-14-1 team and steered it to a division title clinched on the season's final day.
Q 22Which general manager signed Ovechkin's 13-year, $124 million extension in 2008?
George McPhee
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.
Q 23Whose record for goals in a season by a left winger did Ovechkin break with 65 in 2007-08?
Luc Robitaille
Petr Nedved
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.
Q 14Which three players did the Capitals get from Boston in 1997 for Jason Allison, Jim Carey and Anson Carter?
Oates, Tocchet and Ranford
Oates, Tocchet and Ranford were meant to rescue the season, but Washington missed the 1997 playoffs anyway and general manager David Poile was fired.
Q 15Which team swept the Capitals in the 1998 Stanley Cup Final?
Detroit Red Wings
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.
Q 16Which three Capitals each hit their 1,000th career point in 1997-98, an NHL one-season first?
Oates, Housley and Hunter
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.
Q 17Ted Leonsis, who bought the Capitals in 1999, made his fortune at which company?
America Online
America Online bought Leonsis's own company, Redgate Communications, in 1994 and made him a senior executive, five years before he bought the team.
Q 18Which superstar did the Capitals sign for $77 million in 2001?
Jaromir Jagr
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.
Q 19After the Capitals won the 2004 draft lottery and took Ovechkin, which player went second overall to Pittsburgh?
Evgeni Malkin
Evgeni Malkin went second to Pittsburgh, which had the NHL's worst record that season but lost the draft lottery to Washington.
Q 20Ovechkin became the first rookie since whom to score 50 goals in a season?
Teemu Selanne
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.
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.
Q 24Which Capitals defenseman set an NHL record in 2008-09 by scoring in eight straight games?
Mike Green
Mike Green scored 31 goals that season, breaking a 25-year-old streak record on the way, yet finished second in Norris Trophy voting.
Q 25Which eighth seed upset the 121-point Presidents' Trophy Capitals in 2010?
Montreal Canadiens
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.
Q 26Which Capital's overtime goal in Game 7 eliminated the defending-champion Bruins in 2012?
Joel Ward
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.
Q 27Which Capitals legend took over behind the bench when the coach was fired in November 2011?
Dale Hunter
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.
Q 28Whose franchise points record did Ovechkin pass in November 2014?
Peter Bondra
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.
Q 29Where did the Capitals beat Chicago 3-2 in the 2015 Winter Classic?
Nationals Park
Nationals Park, home of baseball's Nationals, saw Troy Brouwer score the winner against his former team with 13 seconds left.
Q 30Which winger did the Capitals acquire from St. Louis in 2015 for Troy Brouwer and Pheonix Copley?
T. J. Oshie
T. J. Oshie arrived as the American shootout hero of the 2014 Olympics, where he scored on four of six attempts to beat Russia.