Lars Eller met a very special Capitals fan at PPG Paints Arena Tuesday before Washington’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Lars met Eller, a five-month-old baby who was named after the Capitals center because of his Stanley Cup-winning goal.
Lars tossed Eller’s family a puck during warmups after noticing their sign on the glass.
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We reached out to Kiran who tagged us on Instagram with his photo.
Kiran writes:
Eller’s mom (Ashley Leonard) is a HUGE Caps fan and an avid RMNB follower! I’ll give you some background.
His name is Eller Sudhakara. He’s five-months-old, lives and born in Pittsburgh.
During the playoff run last year Ashley was pregnant and early on she declared she would name her kid after the Caps player that scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal. She followed through.
So Lars was staring at the sign a bit during warmups, trying to figure out what it meant. Eventually, he got this big grin, picked up a puck, skated over, and flipped it to us :). Needless to say – we were super excited!
We’d actually been lugging that sign around for a while, hoping Lars would see it. We took it up to Buffalo a few weeks back but it was super crowded and there were way more Caps fans at warmups than Sabres fans. The Caps (finally?) travel well!
So that’s the story of little Eller. He hasn’t laced up the skates yet, but maybe he’ll get his own Cup one day.
While kids in this DMV are routinely named after Alex Ovechkin and Braden Holtby, this is the first we’ve heard about a baby being named after Lars Eller — the team’s unheralded third-line center.
Kiran shared several adorable photos from his family’s special night on Instagram.
Here’s the puck Lars tossed to Eller.
Kiran shared video from the game they attended in Bufallo.
And here’s a picture from when Baby Eller was born.
