The Washington Capitals have brought back several nostalgic touches in Alex Ovechkin‘s final NHL season. The latest is a staple from the Capitals’ 2018 Stanley Cup championship run.
Monday morning, on Spencer Carbery’s 45th birthday, Capitals players made the Jack Adams Trophy-winning coach do a “Hot Lap” [Editor’s note: It is capitalized because it is Important.] Carbery’s pupils then tapped their sticks, singing Happy Birthday as he made his way around the MedStar Capitals Iceplex rink.
Monumental Sports Network’s Tarik El-Bashir, who was at the skate bright and early, reported the news.
“Yeah,” Carbery said to the press afterward. “That was fun. 45 years young.”
The Hot Lap first became A Thing in Capitals lore during the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. On April 17, 2018, before Game 3 against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Jay Beagle did a full-speed lap around the rink before their morning skate at Nationwide Arena. After losing their first two postseason games, the Capitals won in double overtime later that night after Lars Eller got a fortunate double bounce near the net.
The superstition caught on from there as the Capitals kept winning on the road. Alex Ovechkin eventually took over the ritual ahead of Game 6 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“If the big guy wants it, he gets it,” Beagle joked at the time.
Later that night, Ovechkin earned the primary assist on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s series-winning overtime goal, sending the Capitals past the second round of the playoffs for the first time in the Ovi Era. The tally also eliminated the Penguins, who had won back-to-back Stanley Cups the two years before and eliminated the Capitals on their way to the promised land.
Former Capitals head coach Barry Trotz eventually took over the ritual before Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final at then Amalie Arena, lumbering around the ice to loud cheers. The Capitals eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning later that night.
Trotz did the lap again before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena.
Naturally, Eller did the lap before Game 5.
Later that night, he scored the championship-winning goal late in the third period.
The tradition eventually stopped during the 2019 postseason. The team tried it in their first-round series against the Carolina Hurricanes, but it just didn’t have the same magic as before, especially with the team without Trotz and Beagle, who had since moved on.
Carbery was an assistant coach with the AHL’s Providence Bruins when the Capitals’ Hot Lap gained fame, re-joining the organization less than three weeks after the Caps won the Stanley Cup to become the Hershey Bears’ 26th head coach in franchise history.
