The Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup on Thursday night in Las Vegas.
The Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights, 4-3, in Game 5 to capture the best-of-seven final series.
Recommended Videos
This is Washington's first Stanley Cup championship in the franchise's 44-year history. It's also Russian superstar and Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin's first Stanley Cup championship in his 13-season NHL career.
Ovechkin scored a go-ahead goal on the power play about midway through the 2nd period. It was his 15th goal of the post season. He finished with the most goals by any player in the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP.
The teams exchanged the lead three times in Game 5, with Vegas taking a 3-2 lead into the 3rd period. Capitals forward Devante Smith-Pelly tied the game 3-3 at the 9:52 mark of the final period.
Lars Eller's goal at 12:23 of the 3rd period was enough to give Washington the 4-3 victory.
The Knights, desperate to extend their majestic first season as an expansion franchise, pulled their goalie with minutes remaining. They fought to keep the puck in the Capitals' end, but couldn't tie up the game.
Ovechkin accepted the Cup and handed it first to longtime teammate Nicklas Backstrom.
(function(d, s, id) {var js,ijs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(d.getElementById(id))return;js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//embed.scribblelive.com/widgets/embed.js";ijs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, ijs);}(document, 'script', 'scrbbl-js'));