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 Ovechkin was the National Hockey League's top scorer for a fourth
straight year with 50 goals, goalie Braden Holtby tied the all-time
mark for single-season wins with 48 and Washington won the
Presidents' Trophy for finishing first overall.
The 16-team playoffs, with the winner of four grueling best-of-seven
series earning the coveted Stanley Cup in June, open on Wednesday
with three games. Washington begin their series on Thursday against
the Philadelphia Flyers.
Among the other key matchups, Canadian Sidney Crosby's Pittsburgh
Penguins will face the New York Rangers, while the defending Stanley
Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks will start on the road against the
St. Louis Blues.
Ovechkin and the Capitals have first-hand knowledge that a
successful regular season is no guarantee of playoff success.
 Since the Russian standout joined Washington in 2005, the Capitals
have never been beyond the second round and have lost a decisive
seventh game in three of the past four years.
"You have to have luck on your side, you have to be healthy, and you
have to be focusing one hundred percent, because the playoffs are
totally different hockey," said Ovechkin. "Every game is like the
last game."
In the past 10 seasons, only the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings and
2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks have finished first overall in the
regular season and gone on to win the Stanley Cup.
"Every player that's in that room, growing up, no matter when they
started playing the game, they were playing for the Stanley Cup,
they never played for the Presidents' Trophy," said Capitals coach
Barry Trotz.
"We all would like to be in that position to play for the one Cup
that we all dreamed about when you’re playing on the streets or in
the hallways of the house or hotel or whatever. That's the one that
we want to play for."
The emergence of center Evgeny Kuznetsov, in his second full season,
and addition of T.J. Oshie from a trade with the St. Louis Blues has
buoyed the hopes of the Eastern Conference's Capitals as they have
provided secondary scoring to Ovechkin.
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An Eastern Conference team has not won the Stanley Cup since the
Boston Bruins in 2011 as Chicago (2015, 2013) and the Los Angeles
Kings (2014, 2012) have won the last four championships.
Chicago, looking to become the NHL's first repeat champion since the
1997-98 Detroit Red Wings, lost key players in Patrick Sharp, Brad
Richards and Brandon Saad last offseason through trades and free
agency to stay within the NHL's salary limits.
But they still have captain Jonathan Toews, forwards Patrick Kane
and Marian Hossa as well as defensemen Duncan Keith and Brent
Seabrook, a core group that has won three Stanley Cups together in
the past six years.
However, the group has played together in 65 postseason games during
the previous three years and will need to dig deep if they are to
make another deep run.
For the first time in 46 years, the playoffs will not have a
Canadian-based team competing. Back in 1970, there only were two
Canadian teams in the a 12-team league, compared to seven in the
30-team NHL today.
Detroit dropped their final two regular season games but still
squeaked into the playoffs and extended the longest active streak of
postseason appearances in the history of professional North American
sports to 25 years.
(Reporting by Tim Wharnsby in Toronto; Editing by Frank Pingue)
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