Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:04 am
OMFG I WON THE CUP!!!!! 
Wow... what a ride!
I was amazed to come back vs Ottawa as they started out by beating me in the first two as I'd mentioned. Then, I was even more surpised to beat the Penguins since as you can see from My Eastern Conference 05-06 Standings they were godlike posting 125 points. The series intro news message pointed out how they'd outscored me 20-9 in four games that year and of course my team knew all to well that they'd pretty much dismantled us in our last regular season matchup 2-6. As you can see it was never, ever easy though.
The Cup Final was a wild affair between us and Calgary who had posted a similar record to Pitt ruling the Western Conf and beating Nashville, Colorado and Dallas to make the Final. The first game was really close, just like early games in my Ottawa and Pitt series were. It could have gone either way but they beat us as two goals scored int he middle of the 2nd held up. Then, I made a serious miscalculation that treatened to derail my Cup run.
That first game was so close I figured they'd probably beat me in the second game too so I decided to go away from my usual gameplan and play mainly my first two lines and out gun 'em. 
Unfortunately they then also ran and gunned me playing Iginla for 33+ minutes and the bloody shootout saw each team take 50 shots. When the smoke cleared I'd been slaughtered 2-7 and even pulled Lunk for the first time in the playoffs. The miscalculation of course was that my team got where it was by having two good scoring lines and two strong defensive line matching checking lines. They held down the opposition until my gunners could do their damage. Playing only the gunners led to them doing their normal job and trying to do the defensive jobs and it was like dressing all forwards as defensemen. I went back to playing my lines equally, rolling them over and playing my matchups. We then dominated Game 3, our first home game 4-1. That's when things got crazy as Lundqvist posted his first shutout of the playoffs but the fallout was ugly on both sides:
Not sure I've seen two guys on the same team get bounced in one game, but neither were related to Semin's injury. He'd had 17 goals in 24 games so that was a major blow. Who would I bring up now to play their first games in the Cup Final? I'd moved up Orszagh when Ovechkin was hurt earlier in the year so I could bring in someone to take his slot on the third.
Having learned my lesson in game two I decided it was most important to keep my defensive lines together and give someone a shot to play on the second line moving Ovechkin to the first. As he'd had a great year in the AHL with 60 points in 60 games I recalled Aulin and he took on the second line center duties with Vasicek moving over to LW. For balance I decided to move Hunter of to the first line and match up Zubrus with Vas and Aulin.It always seems that if you meet a team in the playoffs with a million injuries they'll scramble together a lineup that comes out flying while if I make as many changes as they are required to I get killed... We'd put Spacek (who thye'd gotten from Chicago and was playing on their first pairing) out of the series at that point and also knocked out Yelle who was playing 2nd line center. Now they had two players suspended and since everything would seem to be in my favor we took ice in Calgary and
Hamrlik scored :37 into the first on a penalty by Ovechkin, and again twenty seconds later after we took another penalty. 57 seconds in we were down two and it got no better. ](./images/smilies/wallbash.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
We again got thrashed 1-6!! I stayed the course though, swaped Hunter and Zubrus again and kept going by my plan. We claimed game six 3-1 as Zubrus got two late goals matched up again with Madden at center. Game seven was in Calgary but I was pretty confident we couldn't get blown out again. At least we better not or someone's get a hockey stick where the sun don't shine
Hope quickly turned to shock as they scored on the PP and SH in the first period. They then made it 0-3 around the midway point of the second! 
But then my powerplay answered that score a few minutes later and at 1-3 and half the game left I thought we had chance. Then we took a penalty and about a minute after we scored they made it 1-4. Many of our fans turned off their tvs and left the arena to drown their sorrows; and if not right then I'd guess they did so when they saw it was still 1-4 with only ten minutes left in the game. 
But then at 50:21 Vasicek scored on a pass from Hunter!
It's 2-4... well maybe... there's ten minutes left still... 
Zubrus then cashed in a pass on the PP from his new linemate Ovechkin at 53:38 and that cut it to one! Hope began to fade as the Flames kept them pinned in their own end for what seemed to surely be the way it would end. As I was trying to tell myself "Well, you came one game from the Cup, that's better than you thought you'd do, etc." Madden got a long pass from Ovechkin, broke in and blew a wrister home past a stunned Kipper! The boys had battled all the way back and scored the leveler with just over a minute left!! 
The boys came out flying in OT and dominated Calgary but couldn't get one past Kiprusoff! Then at 77:30 my decison after game four payed off as Aulin in his third game as replacement for Semin in overtime in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals finished off the Flames with his first playoff goal!!!! Here's some combined screenscaps from the amazing comeback: The Capitals Win the Cup in OT! 
Then the team brought home some more hardware:
I'd hired Chiarelli as coach in mid November. I find it odd that Lunk won the Calder and yet didn't make the Rookie All-Star team, Lehtonen did
I was also fairly 
that he wasn't even in the running for the Vezina even though his stats were far better than Theodore (who came in third!) who had less wins and also gave up over three goals per game in MON's first round loss in the playoffs to OTT. Here's the awards Lunk won during the year along with his record in regular season and playoffs. Fehr went on to score over a hundred points in the WHL for the second season in a row but I'd do that deal again in a second!And here's the stats the rest of the team put up in the playoffs and regular season. For the majority of the season these were the lines:
Semin - Madden - Zubrus
Ovechkin - Vasicek - Hunter
Hagman - Pettinger - Orszagh
Varada - Halpern - Clymer
Piitkanen - MacInnis
Phaneuf - Smith
Witt plus Marchment (dealt at deadline) after that Eminger/Davison/Doig
Here's the transactions that brought the team together, from my trades page and the four players I picked up on waivers in early/mid October that were factors as well, Davison was playing really well down the stretch but crumbled in the playoffs... mainly my deadline deals were salary dumps or getting someting for players I wasn't going to re-sign and such. My roster was 26mil for the lineup I brought into the playoffs.
. You should watch out for that Colton Yellow Horn guy though, I've seen him bust wayyyyyyyyy too many times to ever pick him again.
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