The oldest of the group - Alexander Semin - is a month past his 24th birthday while the youngest - Nicklas Backstrom - is coming off a splendid rookie season, but at 20 he is still not old enough to drink legally in the States. Enjoy!Īs Neil Young might have put it, "Tonight's The Night." For the first time in their respective NHL careers, the Caps' quartet of "Young Guns" will taste Stanley Cup playoff hockey on this night when Washington hosts Philadelphia in Game 1 of its opening round playoff series. On the off days between games, we will revisit some events from earlier in that landmark season.
![nhl rebuilt 04 arena nhl rebuilt 04 arena](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaKVzF_XkAQJ74R.jpg)
With the NHL's 2019-20 season "paused" for the foreseeable future, we're going to spend the next month looking back at the day-to-day of that remarkable late-season run, revisiting some of our coverage at the time with some fresh hindsight mixed in. At this time a dozen years ago, the Caps were in the midst of that wild run. That season and that run into the playoffs augured in the "Rock The Red" era of hockey in DC, the beginning of 11 playoff appearances in a span of a dozen seasons. It stands as Ovechkin's career year, it was Backstrom's rookie year, Bruce Boudreau took over behind the Washington bench on Thanksgiving Day, and the Caps made the playoffs for the first time in five years, winning 15 of 19, 11 of 12 and seven straight at season's end to come back from a dismal 6-14-1 start to win the Southeast Division title. In the process of crafting those stories and talking to the subjects themselves and many others, we were reminded of how exciting and thrilling the 2007-08 NHL season was in these parts.
![nhl rebuilt 04 arena nhl rebuilt 04 arena](https://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/n/nhl-2004-lgt/nhl-2004_19.jpg)
Earlier this season, we posted a lengthy piece on Alex Ovechkin's early years in DC and another shorter piece on Nicklas Backstrom's five-year contract extension.