The History of the Washington Capitals(Est. 1973)
1981-1983 CLIMBING TOWARDS RESPECTABILITY
The 1981-82 Season
After that first season of futility, the Caps would spend the remainder of the 1970s struggling to compete, posting marginal improvements in terms of win totals and offensive production but remaining at the bottom of the division, the conference and the League.
Their fortunes would finally begin to change with the new decade. The 1980-81 squad would post their highest point total to date, a whopping 70 points that still put them in the Patrick Division basement but at least showed an evolution from that eight-win season seven years earlier. And that summer General Manager Max McNab would use the third overall pick to select American high school standout Bobby Carpenter - making Carpenter the first U.S.-born player to be drafted in the first round (just months after becoming the first U.S.-born player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated).
Despite any potential optimism surrounding the Caps' improvements and their "Can't Miss Kid", the 1981-82 season got off to a somewhat rocky start. At the helm was Head Coach Gary Green, who had taken over bench boss duties two years earlier and compiled a (relatively) respectful 49-66-29 record since then despite being only 26 at the time of his promotion.The Caps kicked off the season 1-12-0, their lone win coming in the second game of the year - and after an eleven-game losing streak both Green and GM McNab were cut loose.
The move pushed then-assistant GM Roger Crozier into the general manager's spot, and after a single game behind the bench himself (which the team lost 3-1), Crozier made a personnel decision that would impact the next decade of Caps’ hockey: he hired Bryan Murray.
Murray, who was head coach of the Caps' AHL affiliate Hershey Bears at the time, was the players' choice to replace Green and lobbied for the position. His competition for the job included former Bruins' coach Don Cherry; Pollin ultimately went with the untested Murray over Cherry due to Cherry's desire for more control:
"[Cherry] had some conditions I was troubled with, or concerned about. He wanted sort of a Billy Martin-type condition here, where he would be in total control. I was concerned about it, for the Washington Capitals at this time. And told him so."
"I'm a people person. I go with what my heart tells me and what my gut tells me. My gut tells me that Bryan Murray's the guy that's gonna bring the Capitals out of their doldrums." - Abe Pollin (Ken Denlinger, Washington Post, 12 November 1981, D2)
The losing streak that started under Green would end under Murray, the final loss in a 13-game skid coming in Murray's first game against the Penguins on November 11, 1981.
After it ended, the Caps would go on a bit of a tear (particularly by franchise standards), winning seven of their next ten games - 7-1-2 - and outscoring opponents by a two-to-one margin. Of those seven wins, the most memorable would turn out to be a date in late November with the visiting Philadelphia Flyers - a team that had owned the Caps, beating them twenty-six of twenty-eight times to that point (and all fifteen games at the Capital Centre).
This time, however, it was the Caps coming out on top in front of the hometown crowd, bludgeoning the Flyers 10-4 thanks in part to matching hat tricks by Dennis Maruk and Tim Tookey. Also helping the lopsided score along were the eleven man-advantages the Broad Street Bullies gave to the Caps, five of which resulted in Washington goals.
It was just one highlight of a season that on the surface looks very similar to those which preceded it but was in fact very different. The Caps would finish the year 26-41-13, with the same number of wins and fewer points than they'd earned the previous year, and were once again out of the playoff picture. After Murray stepped behind the bench, however, they went 25-28-13; the thirteen-game losing streak that started the year wouldn't be replicated during his tenure, and the Caps would lose more than three games in a row just once during the remainder of the season.
Along with the improvement in their record came a notable improvement among both the team's overall offense and its young talent. The 319 goals-for that year would be the most in franchise history to that point, along with the lowest goal-differential at just -19. The team produced three 80+ point-seasons and, after never having more than two in a single season, five players - Maruk, Ryan Walter, Mike Gartner, Chris Valentine and Carpenter - cracked the thirty-goal mark (with Bengt Gustafsson just four goals shy of making it six).
Maruk in particular would record a season for the record books, both on an individual and franchise level, as he went on to score sixty goals to establish a Capitals record that would last until a certain Russian broke it almost three decades later; his 136 point-season still stands as the all-time high for the franchise. He would hit fifty goals once more the following season, but never again would the man affectionately known as "Pee Wee" match his production from the 1981-82 campaign.
Studly offensive production aside, one of the most notable outcomes of the 1981-82 season was the emergence of players who would go on to play big roles in the Caps' successes of the decade. Bobby Carpenter's rookie campaign would also be the first full season for guys like Bobby Gould, Gaetan Duchesne, Lou Franceschetti and goalie Al Jensen - all of whom would form the core group for the 80s squads that would transform a franchise.
"I think we have the players in the organization to make us a contender. I think the Washington Capitals can be in the top 10, 11 or 12 teams. But we will need certain changes or additions to put us in the upper echelon of the league." - Bryan Murray (Robert Fachet, Washington Post, 12 November 1981, D2)
But before that core could be solidified, there was one more draft pick to make - a selection that would not only help catapult the team into the playoffs at last but would also have ramifications for the next three decades.
The 1982-83 Season
With Bryan Murray in place as head coach and many of the team's young players evolving into stars, the future seemed bright for the Capitals by the summer of 1982. And it got even brighter that June, when General Manager Roger Crozier used the team's fifth overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft to select a young defenseman out of Kitchener, Ontario named Scott Stevens.
But all was not well in Washington.
Rumors had been circulating for months that owner Abe Pollin was looking to move the team... and by the end of the 1981-82 season, with the Caps once again out of the playoffs, it appeared that Pollin had had enough.
"[The Capitals] to date have been the major disappointment and the major failure of my business career." - Abe Pollin (Jane Leavy, Washington Post, 12 November 1981, D1)
On July 21 he went public with his intentions and his demands. Among them was a requirement that the team sell at least 7,500 season tickets and sell out the first ten home games of the 1982-83 campaign; he also demanded that Prince George's County reduce the entertainment tax he paid by 95%, and that the arena bondholders reduce the rent paid by the Caps by two-thirds.
The demands set off an utterly Washingtonian grassroots campaign and lobbying effort to save the Caps. Fans operated phone banks to sell tickets, lobbied local government, and recruited media personalities and businesses to join the cause. The local NBC station held a ticket-selling telethon; the Washington Post, the Special Olympics and eleven other local businesses even chipped in to buy any unsold tickets to the first twelve home games.
In the end three of the four demands were met, with the season ticket goal falling short by 1,900 tickets - but while the "Save the Caps" campaign helped, the team would ultimately stay put thanks to the purchase of a minority stake in the team by a local investment firm headed by Dick Patrick. And it would be Patrick who would help the team take its next step when, on August 30, 1982, he hired David Poile as general manager.
Poile came to Washington with five years of experience as an assistant general manager in the Atlanta/Calgary Flames organization - and was still only thirty-three years old when Patrick and the Caps came calling, making him the youngest general manager in NHL history. If he was intimidated by his new position, however, he certainly didn't show it; just over a week into his tenure Poile constructed a trade with the Montreal Canadiens that would prove pivotal for years to come, sending long-time Caps Ryan Walter and Rick Green to the Habs for Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis and Craig Laughlin.
"I would never have accepted this job if I did not believe the Capitals would make the playoffs in 1982-83... The general manager has to be able to do things on instinct. [...] My definition of the GM is the overseeing of the organization. I brought that up with [owner] Abe [Pollin], and he told me that if I can make deals to better the team, he’s not averse to doing anything. As far as I’m concerned, the hockey department is my baby, and I should be able to go ahead."
- David Poile at his introductory press conference (from Behind the Moves: NHL General Managers Tell How Winners are Built)
The puck dropped on the 1982-83 season and the new-look Capitals on October 6, 1982, with the Caps defeating the New York Rangers 5-4 to kick off the season on a high note. But before long it seemed as though this team was destined to go the way of its predecessors, losing back-to-back games to the Flyers en route to a 5-7-3 record through the first fifteen games.
As the season progressed, however, so did the team. They clawed their way back to .500, then set about moving their way up in the division standings. Through thirty games they were 13-9-8 and in third place in the six-team Patrick Division; by January they had inched into second place, continuing to separate themselves from the bottom of the pack until they had extended an almost thirty-point lead over fifth place New Jersey by February of 1983. On February 13 the Caps picked up their 28th win of the season against Winnipeg, a sound 6-1 victory that gave them their highest win total in franchise history - with twenty-two games left to play.
And by the end of the season they had obliterated their previous highwater marks in wins and points, finishing with a record of 39-25-16, 95 points, and most importantly the first playoff berth in franchise history.
The Caps would face the New York Islanders in the first round, a team that, despite having won the last three Stanley Cups, had finished just two points ahead of the Caps in the standings. The best-of-five series opened at Nassau Coliseum on April 6, 1983, with Bobby Gould scoring the first ever Capitals playoff goal en route to a 5-2 loss; one night later it would be Washington's turn to emerge victorious, downing the champs 4-2 for their first postseason victory and heading back home with the series deadlocked at 1.
They'd have to savor that first victory, as it proved to be the only victory for the Caps that spring. They eventually lost the best-of-five series in four games to an Islanders team that would go on to win their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup - but for the team that had been stuck in the basement for almost a decade, it was the beginning of a new era. Starting with that season they would make the playoffs for each of the next fourteen years.
That impressive run began with a pretty talented team that, in the early 80s, featured a handful of future Hall of Famers on the roster. Thanks in large part to new additions Rod Langway and Scott Stevens, the Caps allowed a 5th-lowest 283 goals-against; Stevens, who would go straight from the draft to the NHL, put up 25 points and the second-best plus-minus among Caps defensemen in an impressive rookie campaign, while new captain Langway's work on the blueline earned him his first Norris Trophy win that summer.
And the offense was just as promising as the reinvigorated blueline. For the first time the Caps posted a positive goal-differential, aided by the continued emergence of stars like Mike Gartner, Bengt Gustafsson and Bobby Carpenter. Goalies Pat Riggin and Al Jensen would split the season in net and in doing so post the franchise's two best GAAs to date, 3.36 and 3.44 respectively.
With those players in place and a milestone achieved, the Caps were now just a few years and a few pieces away from setting franchise records that would last for over two decades. (text from Japers Rink, SB Nation)