It’s Been 20 Years Since Major Pro Sports Team in D.C. Reached Conference Finals

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The Washington Capitals are one win away from accomplishing something no major sports franchise in the nation’s capital has been able to do in the past 20 years. Either a win on Monday in Game 6 or Wednesday in Game 7 over the Pittsburgh Penguins would give the Capitals its first berth to a Conference Finals since 1998.

In fact, they would be the major pro sports franchise in Washington, D.C. to reach a Conference Finals since the Capitals shut out the Ottawa Senators, 3-0 on May 15, 1998 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Note: The Capitals would go on to beat the Buffalo Sabres in six games during the Conference Finals to reach the franchise’s first and lone Stanley Cup Finals berth. They’d ultimately get swept in four games by the Detroit Red Wings.

In the past 20 years, the Redskins, Wizards, and Nationals along with the Capitals have each had their fair share of disappointment trying to reach the Final Four of their respective leagues. None accomplishing the feat. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post passed along a dreadful stat, in which D.C. major pro sports teams are 0-13 in games in which a win would advance them to the Conference Finals.

Since 1998, the Caps, Nats, Skins and Wiz have played 13 playoff games in which a win meant a conference finals appearance. They're 0-13. Chance No. 14 comes on Monday.

— Dan Steinberg (@dcsportsbog) May 6, 2018

Some of those failures have been embedded in D.C. sports folklore.

Redskins

The first failure happened on January 15, 2000 when the Redskins, who led 13-0 in the third quarter over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, would allow a Mike Alstott touchdown followed by a Shaun King pass to John Davis from one yard out to fall behind 14-13. The Redskins behind Brad Johnson drove to the Buccaneers’ 33-yard line for what should have been a go-ahead field goal with just over one-minute remaining. However, Dan Turk botched the snap from the long snapper, and the Redskins’ aspirations of returning to the NFC Championship evaporated.

Nationals

No other team in the city has been closer to ending the curse than the Nationals. However, they’ve found a way to fail each time. It started back in 2012, their first trip to the MLB Playoffs since moving from Montreal to D.C. in 2005. A Jayson Werth walk-off home run in Game 4 of their NLDS against the then-defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals will forever live in D.C. playoffs folklore. However, how dramatically the Nationals squandered in the winner take’s all Game 5 will forever overshadow Werth’s heroics.

In game 5, The Nationals led 6-0 in the sixth inning when starter Gio Gonzalez imploded allowing three runs. The bullpen couldn’t stop the bleeding as they allowed six runs, including the epic meltdown by Drew Storen in the ninth, as he blew the save by allowing four runs as the Nats fell 9-7.

In 2016, they had two cracks at advancing to the NL Championship Series after taking a 2-1 series lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Unfortunately, Blake Treinen allowed three baserunners in the eighth, including a Chase Utley go-ahead RBI-single to break a 5-5 tie allowed the Dodgers to tie the series at 2-2. The Dodgers would eventually outlast the Nationals 4-3 in Game 5 to send Washington back to its misery.

Last year’s failure against the Chicago Cubs was Deja vu going back to the 2012 meltdown. The Nationals forced a Game 5 after Michael A. Taylor did his impersonation of Werth with a grand slam that powered Washington to evening the series at 2-2. In Game 5, Gonzalez struggled to hold a cushion lead much like in 2012. Max Scherzer relieving from the bullpen, imploded much like Storen did, allowing four runs and erasing the Nationals’ lead that they never could quite overcome.

Wizards

The Wizards’ lone chapter of the book of D.C. sorrows occurred last season. John Wall hit arguably the greatest shot in Wizards playoff history in Game 6 to force a Game 7, blowing the roof off of the then named Verizon Center. Unfortunately, Wall was unable to duplicate that success in Game 7 in hostile territory shooting 8-of-23 from the field. Aside from that, the Celtics bench outplayed the Wizards bench and Kelly Olynk highlighted that notion with his constant buckets off the pick-and-pop that sunk the Wizards’ hopes and ended an otherwise historic season for the franchise on a sour note.

Capitals

Then we have the Capitals, the last team to reach their league’s Final Four. The Capitals have been the biggest disappointment of any of the four major D.C. pro sports teams. They have the NHL’s greatest goal scorer of his generation in Alex Ovechkin. Despite that, the captain has been a part of each playoff failure since 1998 for the franchise. In 2009, the Capitals forced a Game 7 against their hated rivals the Penguins in what was the birth of the Alex Ovechkin-Sidney Crosby rivalry. In Game 7, the Penguins routed the Caps 6-2 on the Caps’ home ice.

In 2012, the Capitals lost a heart-breaker at Madison Square Garden to the New York Rangers. In 2015, the Capitals squandered a 3-1 series lead, as the New York Rangers won three straight — each being by one goal — to steal the series. And then last year, after forcing a Game 7 with a win in Pittsburgh in Game 6, the Capitals were no match for more aggressive Penguins. For the second time, the Capitals lost Game 7 on their home ice to the pesky Penguins.

This year, the Capitals are just one win away holding a 3-2 series lead going into Monday’s Game 6 in Pittsburgh. So, if any fans feel pessimistic, it’s kind of hard to blame them given the history of failures by all four pro sports teams. Game 6 between the Caps and Pens will be D.C.’s 14th attempt to win a game to reach the Conference Finals since 1998. Maybe the 14th will be luckier than the prior 13 tries?