Capitals and Penguins: The Best of Enemies

As you might imagine, the scene in the immediate aftermath of Game Seven of the first round playoff series between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers on Wednesday night was rather chaotic -- albeit a very happy brand of chaos. It was only a few minutes before that veteran center Sergei Fedorov had broken a 1-1 tie late in the third period, helping the Capitals to snap 11 seasons of frustration, and win their first playoff series since the team fought its way to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998.

The looks on the faces of everyone in the organization were unmistakable. Sure, everyone was busy, but it was impossible not to tell that they were relieved to have escaped from the first round after trailing in the series by 2-0 and 3-1, and deliriously happy that they were one step closer to reaching the goal of winning a Stanley Cup.

As I sat hacking away at my keyboard, side-by-side with sports writers from all over North America, it was impossible not to recall what things looked like just two years before when the Caps first granted me a press pass to cover the team. In those days, the entire press gaggle could fit comfortably into a closet-sized room just down the hallway from the home locker room for the postgame presser with then head coach Glen Hanlon.

But on this night, with reporters from just about every corner of the continent in Washington to cover the game, the team had to move the postgame presser with current head coach Bruce Boudreau to the far more spacious confines of the practice court normally used by the Washington Wizards.

My, how it seemed things had changed. But as the old cliche goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that's exactly what chimed through my head as news spread through the Verizon Center that the Carolina Hurricanes had just eliminated the New Jersey Devils in their first round series.

Needless to say, it didn't take long for everyone to realize that the elimination of the Devils had set up a confrontation in the second round between Washington and its old playoff nemesis, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The history here is hardly unknown, but I'll recap it quickly. Over 11 seasons between 1991 and 2001, these two teams met in the playoffs seven times, with Pittsburgh winning six of those meetings. What was worse, however, was how the Capitals lost those games. In both 1992 and 1995, Washington blew series leads of 3-1 before allowing the Penguins to storm back and win. Perhaps most painful of all was the series in 1996, when Peter Nedved won Game Four of the series with a goal in the fourth overtime -- this in a game where Mario Lemieux had been ejected for instigating a fight and Washington's Joe Juneau had failed to convert on a penalty shot in the second overtime period.

It was that goal, more than any other, that cemented the perception in Washington for a number of years that the Caps were simply a snake-bitten franchise that couldn't win when it mattered, a psychic wound that was only partially salved by the trip to the Finals in 1998. After that came a pair of back-to-back first round exits against those same Penguins, which is the only real memory that's evoked by a pair of banners hanging the the rafters in Washington touting the team's first two Southeast Division championships.

If all that wasn't bad enough, you could say that the Penguins did their level best to finish off the franchise after the 2000-01 season, when they traded Jaromir Jagr to Washington for three middling prospects. Hailed as a coup at the time -- including by bloggers like me -- the addition of Jagr to the Caps lineup was more akin to injecting a healthy, happy and productive adult with a dose of the Ebola virus. Less than three seasons later, Jagr was gone, leaving behind a franchise that was a smoking ruin.

Of course, many would say that these memories are meaningless, especially to the players, many of whom hadn't taken their first stride in a pair of skates when the teams first met in the playoffs in 1991. But for the fans -- and yes, I am one of those -- meeting Pittsburgh again is a grand opportunity, one more chance to drive a stake through the heart of a franchise that has tormented locals for the better part of two decades. It's a chance that the fans here relish, and I hope the players do too.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.