"The Great Eight" Finally Has It

In Alexander's Ovechkin 13th year playing hockey in the National Hockey League, he is finally a Stanley Cup champion.

Yesterday Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup against the Vegas Golden Knights at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This is the first Stanley Cup that the franchise of the Washington Capitals have ever won.

Ovechkin was selected first overall in the 2004 NHL Draft but did not play in the 2004-05 NHL season because of a lockout the NHL had at the time so Ovechkin could not start his rookie season until the 2005-06 NHL season. Ever since Alex has played in his first NHL game he has become one of the best players in the league and has accomplished so much as he has been selected to the NHL All-Star game nine times, has been selected to the NHL First All-Star team seven times, won NHL rookie of the year award in 2006, won the Art Ross Trophy in 2008 and now a Stanley Cup champion.

Year after year it some team had been able to stop the Capitals from reaching their dream of getting to the Stanley Cup Final. In the first 12 years that Ovechkin has played in the NHL he had never reached past the Eastern Conference semifinals. But that changed this year as they were finally to reach the Eastern Conference Finals as they defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference semifinals to get to the conference finals and then the Caps would beat the Lightning in the conference finals and eventually get to the Stanley Cup finals and defeating the new NHL expansion team in the Vegas Golden Knights by a total of 4 games to 1 game.

Ovechkin is not the only Capital who is finally happy to win the Stanley Cup. Nicklas Backstrom has been in this league since the 2007-08 NHL season and has played every season with the Capitals and he has been suffering basically all the losses that Ovechkin so he feels happy he finally has a ring for himself as well. You know how Pittsburgh Penguins player Malkin seems to be the sidekick of his captain Sidney Crosby and Philadelphia Flyers player Wayne Simmonds seems to be the sidekick of his captain Claude Giroux. Well I always thought of Backstrom to be the sidekick of his captain Ovechkin. Backstrom is in the same boat of Malkin and Simmonds. All three have one thing in common is that they all have the case of being the best offensive man on their teams even though they are not praised as much as their captains. That's just something to think about.

Other Capitals players that have win their first Stanley Cup are T.J. Oshie, Tom Wilson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Jay Beagle, Braden Holtby, Devante Smith-Pelly, John Carlson and Matt Niskanen. Capitals defensemen Brooks Orpik has won his second Stanley Cup championship as he was a Stanley Cup champion in 2009 with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

What you had to love about this series if you are Capitals fan is that Braden Holtby played very strong as he did not let the Game 1 loss of him giving up five goals make him lose his confidence. You knew the Golden Knights wanted to win the cup but the Capitals wanted to win it more especially "The Great Eight". If you did not know that is one of Ovechkin's nicknames. You could look at Ovechkin's eyes and tell that the only thing he was thinking about at all was winning the Stanley Cup. Just put yourself in Ovechkin's shoes. Imagine going twelve straight seasons without having a very very deep playoff run and knowing that the teams like the Penguins, the Rangers and the Lightning always had their way against you. And then in your thirteenth year you get to the year in where you finally get to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Vegas Golden Knights. If you were Ovechkin, after suffering from all these years would you really waste and blow the opportunity of winning the Stanley Cup when you are in the Finals. Of course you would not.

After Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals when Ovechkin was in the locker room and thought to himself that he could not let Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and the whole rest of the Golden Knights, made up of at least one different player from all the other teams in the NHL, kick his butt in the Finals. Ovechkin knew he had to win the Cup to achieve his ultimate goal and show everybody that he can be a CHAMPION. He could not lose to an expansion team with their best player being their goalie.

Believe it or not Capitals head coach Barry Trotz had been in the same situation as Alexander Ovechkin. Trotz had started coaching since the 1998-99 NHL season and the only two teams he has ever coached are the Capitals and the Nashville Predators. In the 15 seasons that Trotz coached the Predators he could also never get the Predators to go past further than the Western Conference semifinals. Then when Trotz started coaching for the Capitals in the beginning of the 2014-15 NHL season he kept not getting past the semifinals in the playoffs with Ovechkin. But this year was different as not only Trotz got to his first conference finals series but he got to the Stanley Cup Finals as well with Ovechkin as they both made deep playoff runs for the first time being part of the NHL. Trotz never played in the NHL if you did not know that.

Ovechkin has finally has his cup and the media can now not have to keep mentioning how he is not a champion cause now he is.