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With the Washington Capitals as the Eastern Conference Champions, they now face the tall task of challenging the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings.

Tale of the Tape

#4 Washington Capitals v. #3 Detroit Red Wings

• Regular Season Series: Red Wings 2-0-0
• Capitals Playoffs: Defeated Boston (4-2), Ottawa (4-1), and Buffalo (4-2)
• Red Wings Playoffs: Defeated Phoenix (4-2), St. Louis (4-2), and Dallas (4-2)

Hunter’s Wait

Drafted 41st overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1979 NHL Draft, forward Dale Hunter joined the Nordiques starting with the 1980-81 season. After seven seasons in Quebec, Hunter was traded to the Washington Capitals on June 13th, 1987 with goaltender Clint Malarchuk for a 1987 First Round Draft pick (that turned into Hall of Fame forward Joe Sakic) and forwards Gaetan Duchesne and Alan Haworth.

In his 11th season with the Capitals, and 18th in the NHL, Hunter’s father, Dick, beamed with fatherly pride when he saw his son reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in his career. “It’s a big thrill, because it was a long time coming, you know,” Dale explained,  “In 18 years, I’ve been to the conference finals three times, I was swept all three times. Now, to be in this situation — to be playing in June like this — is unbelievable.”

After seeing his older brothers Dave, three Stanley Cups with Edmonton, and Mark, a Stanley Cup with Calgary in 1989, “I was the only one missing out,” Dale said, wondering if his time was running out, “Sometimes you do wonder. You don’t make the playoffs, things don’t go your way for a while, and then sure, you figure at my age [37 years old], there aren’t too many chances left. The Stanley Cup is something you dream about as a kid, and if it never comes through for you, no matter what happens in your career, then you’re always going to be missing a piece.”

“I hope so badly he gets a ring,” Dick Hunter said, still giddy from seeing Dale hold the Prince of Wales Trophy. “He never complained. He’s the kind of kid who doesn’t worry about anything — he just takes it the way it is. He’s like his mother was, in that way. He just plays and that’s it. But now he’s got his chance. I really wanted him to get this chance.”

The feeling is shared by Dale’s teammates and even general manager George McPhee. “I was really hoping that he could have carried the trophy [Prince of Wales] at home the other night [Game 5]. I don’t get too wound up at games, but I wanted to win it at home and I wanted Dale Hunter to hold it. I am very proud and happy for Dale. They don’t come any better than that guy, and the way he plays — they just don’t come any better. He’s been a great role model for this team.”

Ultimate Underdogs

Heading into the Stanley Cup Final, the media unanimously declared that the Detroit Red Wings were going to win the Stanley Cup, and that the Washington Capitals did not have a chance. The Hockey News in their June 19th, 1998 issue proved as such when Editor-in-Chief Steve Dryden, associate editor Bob McKenzie, senior writer Mike Brophy, and staff writer Mark Brender all selected the Red Wings to defeat the Capitals.

McKenzie even went as far as saying the following in his article:

“The Capitals need all the help they can get to compete against a team as talented and driven as Scotty Bowman’s Red Wings,” McKenzie wrote “The only thing that stands in the way of this being an utter mismatch is Washington netminder Olie Kolzig, who enters the Cup final as the leading candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.”

When mentioning the Capitals’ weaknesses, McKenzie also pumped up the Red Wings strengths. “Heading into the final, the Caps had a 12-5 playoff record. They were outshot in 14 of those 17 games and often by a wide margin,” McKenzie noted. “But it’s one thing to play sloppy hockey against the Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres and have your goaltender bail you out. It is quite another, however, to do it against the Wings, who may not be as thoroughly dominant as they were a year ago, but are still a force with which to be reckoned. The key to Red Wing success is depth and balance. Players such as Brendan Shanahan and Sergei Fedorov can misfire for a whole series, but Detroit’s depth was still good enough to beat the Dallas Stars, the NHL’s regular season titlist, in six games.”

June 9th, 1998 – Game 1

Washington Capitals came into Game 1 aware that they were the underdogs, and they relished being able to play the spoiler role in this series. “This is fine with me; I’d rather they [Detroit] be favored anyway,” forward Brian Bellows said. “Let’s face it, they’re the defending Stanley Cup champions, and if you look down their lineup you don’t see a lot of weaknesses anywhere. We just have to look at the big picture. They are still in the same league as us, and I think we match up half-decently against them. It will be interesting to see what happens as the game actually comes.”

In Game 1, the nerves got to the Capitals, and the Red Wings took advantage in the first period as a turnover and subsequent missed check by Capitals defenseman Sergei Gonchar led to a Joey Kocur’s goal, giving the Red Wings a 1-0 lead. A little over two minutes later, Nicklas Lidstrom scored to grow the Red Wings’ lead to two. “We had a couple of shifts where our number one and number two lines got outplayed by their number three and number four lines, and it was really a couple of shifts in the game that made the difference,” Capitals coach Ron Wilson said. “We got a little casual, a little lackadaisical with the puck, and they made us pay, 2-0.”

“They scored twice on a couple of bad plays,” Capitals forward Joe Juneau said. “I thought we started pretty good, but as soon as they got the first goal, we started panicking. Breakouts are awful, and we started giving the puck away.”

In the second period, Capitals forward Richard Zednik scored the first Stanley Cup final goal in franchise history to get them back within one at 15:57 of the period. “It took us a little while from that point, because you’re down 2-0 in the first game and it’s a little overwhelming,” Wilson said. “For a lot of people, it was our first crack at the finals. But then I think we really believe they are a team just like us. I don’t think our players they’ve been dominated, by any stretch of the imagination.”

The third period saw neither team score as both goaltenders Olaf Kolzig and Chris Osgood stood to all. Kolzig made 29 saves on 31 shots for the Capitals, giving them a chance to stay in the game. “Olie never lost his focus,” Capitals captain Dale Hunter said. “We rely on him to make big saves for us, and he did it again. There’s nothing new there.”

Despite the Game 1 loss, the Capitals remain in good spirits. “We came here for a split,” Wilson said. “If we lose [game 2], we are down two to nothing in a series. Obviously against a team like Detroit, it is going to be difficult to come back from, but I don’t believe in my heart that it is impossible. I think our minds are a bit at ease from what to expect from the Red Wings. We know that they will play better, but we also understand that we can play much better. [Game 1] was a feeling-out process, and we came out of it. We got opportunities to tie it in the third period and maybe get overtime and a victory, but the bottom line is that it is winning and losing, and how you play doesn’t really amount to anything.”

Ranford’s Future

One of the more curious things to come out after the first game was comments made by Capitals goaltender Bill Ranford about his future with the club. “I can’t see me being back,” Ranford said. “[Olaf Kolzig] has proven himself that he can play, and I just don’t think they’re going to want to be put in a situation — it’s tough to be put in a situation where you have two guys who want to play. Whatever happens, happens. I just want to play, no matter whether it’s here or somewhere else.”

When Capitals general manager George McPhee was approached about Ranford’s future, he said he was not going to comment on any player’s contract until after the Stanley Cup Final is over. “The day the season ends, the next day, I’ll go in and talk to George,” Ranford noted.

“This is an unstable year for goaltending, there’s no doubt,” Ranford said, while also noting the upcoming expansion draft for the Nashville Predators. “There are a handful of guys who are unrestricted, and it’s an open market. It might be the first time ever that you see a handful of first-class, superstar goalies that are up for grabs. I think you’re going to see a lot of jersey changes.”

A Stanley Cup Baby

After Game 1, Capitals forward Brian Bellows flew home to Edina, MN for the birth of his son Kieffer. Bellows’ ability to be there for his wife while she was induced was a testament to not just the miracle of modern medicine, but also to a significant change in sports management.

“That’s unbelievable,” said Capitals owner Abe Pollin, when told about how other players’ situations in other sports leagues are like, “The Stanley Cup playoffs are a game. A game. Having a baby is life. We all want to win, of course, but it’s a game. Life comes first.”

Pollin made his private jet available to Bellows, at a cost of thousands of dollars, so he could fly to Minneapolis after Game 1, and then fly back to Detroit the night before Game 2.

“This is one of the biggest moments in your life,” coach Ron Wilson said, “and God knows I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and I’d said a game was more important than the birth of your child. That’s the way we feel, and I think when a team knows that is how you operate as an organization, it’s a 10 times better atmosphere.”

“When all’s said and you’re done playing hockey, you go home and it’s your family who’s always there,” said Capitals defenseman Joe Reekie. “I think it’s a great thing the organization is doing for Brian. To be there, at the birth of your child, is something no parent wants to miss.”

“I had my best skate in ages this morning,” Bellows said after the team’s morning skate before Game 2. “It’s a world of difference to me, all the worry, all the concern is gone. We had a difficult pregnancy at the beginning back in Germany, and it’s great to see it come to full term with such a good result.”

Coach Wilson, however, was missing his daughter’s high school graduation in California, for Game 2.

June 11th, 1998 – Game 2

The Washington Capitals looked to tie the series at one before heading back home, but in the first period, Detroit Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman scored his fifth goal of the playoffs to give the Red Wings the 1-0 lead. 

In the second period, the Capitals offense woke up as Peter Bondra, Chris Simon, and Adam Oates scored to give them a 3-1 lead. Going into the third period Yzerman scored his second of the game to get the Red Wings back within one, but Joe Juneau scored to retake the two-goal lead. The Capitals had a chance to put the Red Wings away, but forward Esa Tikkanen missed a wide open net, and the Red Wings were able to respond with goals from Martin Lapointe and Doug Brown to tie the game and force overtime.

In the extra frame, forward Kris Draper scored with 4:14 left in overtime to give the Red Wings the 5-4 comeback victory and take the 2-0 series lead over the Capitals.

“We let things slip away,” Capitals coach Ron Wilson said. “We made too many soft plays against a very hungry team, and they took advantage of some of our mistakes. It makes it difficult for tonight, but we will bounce back. We had the win right on Esa’s stick, for God’s sake, and that could have made it 5-3 right there, but it didn’t.”

“Obviously, the third period was kind of a disaster for us. In that period they showed us why they’re a championship team,” said Capitals defenseman Mark Tinordi “I think the third period, if we had wanted to win this game, we should have beared down and played better. We didn’t get the job done. We should have been able to finish this game. They won their home games. Obviously, we thought we should have won this game, but we’ll go home now, and the fans will be excited to see us, and we have to come out with more intensity and finish it off.”

“You have to [regroup] — there’s no choice. We could sit here and sulk, and it will be a quicker series than what we planned it to be,” Capitals goaltender Olaf Kolzig said after making 55 saves in the loss. “We have to learn from what we did tonight, and realize we can’t respect that team quite as much as we did tonight, and get back to work tomorrow and work on some things.”

“It’s two games to nothing; they’ve held serve [at Joe Louis Arena],” Wilson said yesterday. “Now we have to bounce back at our place. One thing is for sure, we can’t blow a three-games-to-one lead, so there is a positive. Maybe we will find ourselves down three to one and come back. Maybe that is the ultimate way to bury everything from the past. The bottom line here is that we have to hold serve at home. If we can win our three home games, we know for sure we force a Game 7. I am not saying that we will, but we are that close to turning this around. I know our fans have never had a sniff of the Stanley Cup finals and this should be exciting for everybody. By no means is this series over. If I was the Detroit Red Wings, I would be a little nervous because we have been so close.”

June 13th, 1998 – Game 3

With the series heading to Washington DC, the Capitals make history as they play their first Stanley Cup Final home game in franchise history, and with the hopes of winning their first Stanley Cup Final game and cutting the Detroit Red Wings series lead in half. In the first period, the Red Wings struck quickly as forward Tomas Holmstrom scored 35 seconds into the game to give the Red Wings the 1-0 lead.

For Capitals goaltender Olaf Kolzig, he questioned the validity of the goal as he stopped the initial shot by Steve Yzerman, and felt that he held onto the puck long enough to warrant a whistle, but the refs deemed the puck loose for Holmstrom to score. “It was a questionable goal that I thought I had long enough for a whistle,” Kolzig said. “It took a lot out of us, I think.”

During the first intermission, Capitals coach Ron Wilson challenged the players, who only recorded one shot in the opening period. “He wanted everybody to be accountable,” Kolzig said. “He said, To all of you who have family here, how are you going to look them in the face if you don’t give a better effort?’”

Then after a scoreless second period, Capitals forward Brian Bellows scored to tie the game at one, but less than five minutes later, forward Sergei Fedorov scored his first of the Stanley Cup Final, and tenth of the playoffs, to give the Red Wings the 2-1 victory over the Capitals to take the 3-0 series lead.

“You only need to look at the Red Wings’ play, whether it’s along the boards or their composure or their grit, and we haven’t matched that player for player,” said Capitals forward Brian Bellows.”We’re finding out that the difference is minuscule, but it really shows up on the scoreboard sometimes.”

“This is when the cliches come out, where you say one game at a time, one shift at a time,” Kolzig said after making 32 saves. “We can’t think about trying to win four straight, because that’s too big a task. I still think we have a chance.”

Leaving Game 3 with more questions than answers, Wilson expressed his frustration with their effort. “I don’t see why you have to be in the finals to know how to play hard,” he said. “I mean, you work so hard to get here, and then we have some guys who have not played very well at all this point. We have gotten breaks in other series when we worked hard, and Detroit has been persistent and they’re on a mission, without a doubt.”

“All the time, they [Detroit] got the goal they need,” Capitals defenseman Mark Tinordi said. “It’s hard to explain. We were getting that goal against Buffalo, and Boston, and maybe you sit back then and say ‘Why do we score? Why do we get the shot?’ It’s not like they outplayed us in the third period, but they got the goal. They scored. Like I said, it’s hard to explain.”

“The way I’m looking at this is we’ve lost each game in the first period,” Wilson said. “Take out the first period, and we’d have won two games and been in overtime in the other one. I think we can draw a lot of positives. We haven’t given up in a game. We keep on pumping, We haven’t gotten off to good starts, but we’ve finished as strong as we possibly could finish in a lot of the games. Our goal right now is to win one game. When we win one game, then we’ve got to do the same thing again. You just have to keep thinking in the short term.”

June 16th, 1998 – Game 4

In a must win Game 4 at the MCI Center, the Washington Capitals hosted the Detroit Red Wings in what could be the last game of the 1997-98 season, and in the first period Doug Brown scored on the power play, 10:30 into the period, to give the Red Wings the 1-0 lead. In the second period Martin Lapointe scored at 2:26 into the period to grow Detroit’s lead to two.

“Obviously we were frustrated, down,” forward Adam Oates said. “That’s the one thing you learn as you get older and you play in the playoffs, that all of a sudden it happens pretty fast. Eight days, and all of a sudden you’re losing four games in a row.”

Moments later Brian Bellows scored to get the Capitals back within one. However, the one goal deficit wouldn’t last very long as Larry Murphy scored four minutes later while on the power play to reclaim the two goal lead for the Red Wings. Then in the third period Brown scored his second power play goal of the game to give the Red Wings the 4-1 victory over the Capitals to sweep the series 4-0 and claim their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship.

“You’re disappointed obviously to get this far and come close to realizing a dream, but I’m very proud of our team,” Capitals coach Ron Wilson said. “I’m disappointed we lost four straight. A lot of good teams have lost four straight — including Detroit. They seemed to beat us in every way, and they knew what to do. We competed. I’m proud of our players. I’m proud of our organization. And I know we’ll be back.”

“We had the whole third period, practically, to think of it,” Bellows said. “You go back and you go through things. It’s the little things that weigh on your mind. The one you’ll never forget.”

“It’s a pretty empty feeling right now, like we’ve just played two months of hockey for nothing, but in a couple weeks we’ll realize that it meant more than it seems to us right now,” Capitals goaltender Olaf Kolzig said after making 34 saves on 38 shots. “We came a long way this year as a team and an organization, but we lost to a great hockey team. They were the champs, they played like champs.”

“It’s a big disappointment,” Capitals captain Dale Hunter said. “It’s hard to explain. It’s disappointing. They beat us four games straight. It’s kind of an empty feeling in your stomach. I guess we have nobody to blame but ourselves. To get to the finals and lose is a big disappointment. It didn’t work out. They beat us. They really buried us.”

For the Red Wings, winning this Stanley Cup carried more meaning as they played for their injured teammate Vladimir Konstantinov, who was injured in a tragic auto accident six days after Detroit won the Stanley Cup the year before. Konstantinov spent months in the hospital after the limousine accident, and suffers from both brain damage and partial paralysis. After the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, they wheeled him out onto the ice, to a standing ovation from the MCI Center crowd, and got to be a part of the Red Wings celebration.

“This is for No. 16,” Red Wings defenseman Slava Fetisov said while referring to Konstantinov’s sweater number. “He’s going to walk soon, I have no doubt about it.”

“Their individual players are as good as any in the league,” Capitals forward Craig Berube said about the Red Wings. “But what’s really great about them is that the individuals put the system first and the team first. Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan and Sergei Fedorov are used to scoring 50 goals a year. But in this system they sacrifice their own goals to win Cups instead. That’s what’s important.”

Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy after being named the most valuable player in the playoffs. “What can you say about him?” Red Wings forward Kris Draper said. “He’s unbelievable. He’s the heart and soul of this hockey club. Conn Smythe — he just got himself a new nickname.”

“Stevie plays well at both ends of the rink, and my understanding is he’s an outstanding leader,” Wilson said. “He scored points, he kills penalties, he’s on the power play. He is obviously their most consistent player and deserves the award.

For Wilson, he wanted to see the Stanley Cup be awarded to the Red Wings after Game 4 concluded. “I’m a fan of hockey, and that’s something you dream of seeing,” Wilson said while watching the Red Wings celebrate with the Stanley Cup on the MCI Center ice. “There’s no point hiding in the back room and avoiding it. You want to see the Stanley Cup up close, and dream that next year, it’s going to be our team that holds it over our heads.”

Washington Post writer Tony Kornheiser summed up this playoff run best. “The fact is that the Capitals made hockey matter in this city for the first time. The hundreds of shots Kolzig turned away, the playoff goals that Bellows, Sergei Gonchar, Adam Oates, Todd Krygier, Joe Juneau and Peter Bondra scored — even the shot that [Esa] Tikkanen missed — they’ll all be remembered fondly, long after the pain of losing four straight to Detroit is forgotten. We should remember 1998.”

With the Stanley Cup Final over, the Washington Capitals magical season has come to an end. Stay tuned for Chapter 14 – A Look Back at the 1997-98 Season.

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