"The Capitals Finally Win The Big One"

Prior to the Stanley Cup Finals run of 1998, there was no debate about the single most thrilling moment in Washington Capitals history.

It came at Capital Centre, late on the night of April 16, 1988.

"It" was Dale Hunter's overtime goal in Game 7 of Washington's opening round Stanley Cup playoff series with Philadelphia.

Drama such as Hunter's heroics typically needs no further explanation. Here, even the phrases "Game 7" and "Overtime Goal" don't adequately tell the whole story.

The Capitals had trailed in the series 3 games to 1, and fell behind in the 7th game, 3-0, before rallying to forge a 4-4 tie at the end of regulation.

Even that doesn't provide full context.

The season before, it was the Caps who had taken a 3-1 series lead, over the Islanders, only to lose games 5 and 6.

Then, on the same Capital Centre Ice, they lost game 7 in the 4th overtime.

Now it was Hunter, circling behind the Flyers defense, taking a lead pass from Larry Murphy, and sliding the puck between Ron Hextall's pads to complete his breakaway.

Caps fans - 18,130 in the arena, watching locally on HTS, and nationally as I did on ESPN - exploded with the cheer stifled and swallowed for an entire year.

To be sure, there was playoff heartbreak in the years before the Hunter goal, and in the years that followed, too.

On this one night, though, the emotion of the moment was captured beautifully by game broadcaster Jim Hughson of Canada's TSN-TV:

"The Washington Capitals finally, finally, won the Big One."

Excerpts from The New York Times Game Story
Capitals Win Series on Overtime Goal
By Joe Sexton

When he arrived from Quebec last June, Dale Hunter gave the Washington Capitals a quality they had sorely lacked. He was tough, talented and allergic to the notion of quitting.

Tonight, Hunter gave the club's legions of loyal but consistently disappointed followers something they had craved for more than a decade. He gave them a supremely clutch overtime goal, drama that ended in delight and relief from the oppressive and debilitating label of losers.

''He is a player who will absolutely do anything to win,'' said Rod Langway, a veteran of five seasons of Capital collapses. ''He sacrifices his body, his person. Look at him, he's got stitches and cuts everywhere. But he knows how to give it, too.''

''When I got the puck, I just went with my instincts, basically,'' said Hunter, whose goal at 5:19 of the third period had given the Capitals a brief 4-3 lead.

''I moved the puck a little when I got close to see if anything would happen. If he hadn't moved, I might have panicked.''

''I know I was shaking my head when it was 3-0,'' said Capitals coach Bryan Murray. ''They had everything going for them. We had nothing. I knew somebody had to do something exceptional.''

Enter Hunter. ''That trade,'' Murray said of the deal that brought Hunter and Clint Malarchuk from the Nordiques, ''won the series.''

Excerpts from The Washington Post Column
Hunter Did More Than End Game
By Michael Wilbon

In the euphoria of the Washington Capitals locker room last night, captain Rod Langway let his guard down just a bit, perhaps still a little shocked at just how far from behind his team had come to beat Philadelphia in this seventh and deciding game.

"I'm not going to kid you," he began. "When it was 3-0, I thought we'd be blown out of the rink. As a veteran, you know you're scared, but you try to look and act confident.

"At a time like that, you're looking for one thing to turn it around; something simple," he said. "It was a great play by Hunter that got it turned around."

The great play was a game-changing pass from Hunter to Gary Galley for the Capitals first goal; (it) helped eliminate fear of being blown out that so many of the Capitals must have been feeling.

And now, here was Hunter bearing down on Flyers goalkeeper Ron Hextall. "Me breaking in is a lot different from Mike Bossy.

"Hextall is standing there and I'm waiting. He's got to do something before I can do something. Or at least that's what I'm figuring.

But he didn't do anything. I made a little deke because I just didn't see any room to shoot. Finally, he opened his legs and it was just enough room for me to put it in."

Hunter said it was the biggest goal of the career, but only because it was the most recent. Larry Murphy, who started the play with the long pass, moved a little closer to the truth when he called it, "the biggest goal in the history of the franchise."

Excerpts from The Washington Post Column
Standing Tall, After All Those Years
By Tony Kornheiser

No matter what happens from here on, no matter how badly or how often they lose, nobody can call the Capitals chokers anymore. They fought off three match points, and became only the fifth NHL team to win a 7-game playoff series after losing three of the first four games. They did something they'd never done before: They proved themselves.

And what tender poetry in the way they won. Not only to come back from 3-1 in games, but to come back from a 3-0 deathtrap in the seventh game. To go to overtime in this building, the very building where they went so many agonizing overtimes one year ago in similar circumstances.

And to win, to finally do to others what for so long had been done to them. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do, indeed, grind.

They swarmed around Ron Hextall like he was the bait for a shark feed frenzy. Soon it was 3-2, and then, under relentless pressure — 19 shots in the period — Hextall yielded again. Fans, dressed in home white and carrying white pompons, leaped up and down making Capital Centre look like a cotton field in full bloom.

When overtime came the Capitals were the aggressors. How many shots did they fling at Hextall? Does 100 sound like too many? How close were they? So close that if they were any closer, you could shave with them.

And when Hunter finally pinched through and pierced him, there was the noise of 20,000 sleepless nights, 20,000 muffled screams, 20,000 broken hearts all freed from the grasp of history and exploding into joy.


"Tonight was meant to be," Rod Langway gushed. "It had to be that we won this game."

	"Breaking is Hunter... He's by the defense... Score!"

	"Hunter streaking through the middle... The pass... Hunter's in on a breakaway!"

	"Murphy starts the rush... He hits Hunter... He's in alone... A shot and a goal!"