Don't Be Denied

Lars Eller's goal midway through the second overtime of Game 3 of Washington's first-round series in Columbus gave the Caps the first of the 16 wins they had to secure in order to hoist the Cup in Vegas. Had Washington lost that game way back on April 17, none of this would be happening right now.

After that 3-2 Washington win got the Caps back into that series and prevented them from going into an 0-3 chasm in the series, this is how we concluded our recap of that contest here on Dump 'n Chase:

Eller's first playoff goal as a Capital came two years and two days after his most recent playoff goal, and it was about as important a tally as he could have imagined. Was it the biggest one of his career to date?

"I'll tell you when the season's over," he says. "But it's up there."

Well, as you may know, the season is over now.

With 7:37 remaining in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final, Eller scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal of the Cup-clinching game. The Game 3 overtime goal against the Blue Jackets is probably still "up there" in the pantheon of important Eller goals, but it's been easily usurped by his Cup-clincher.

"It means everything," said Eller of his game-winner, in the midst of the celebratory aftermath of Game 5. "You couldn't write the story better yourself, getting to score the game-winner with five minutes left or whatever, and in this building, here, tonight.

"If you want to win on the road, I could not imagine a better place to do it than right here, and this team just deserves it so much."

Eller scored three game-winners in the 2018 playoffs to lead the team and tie for the league lead. In addition to his bookend winners for victories No. 1 and No. 16, Eller supplied the game-winning marker for the Caps' 10th victory of the spring, Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final series against Tampa Bay.

Washington got two game-winning goals each from Evgeny Kuznetsov, T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, Devante Smith-Pelly and Jakub Vrana, and Nicklas Backstrom, Jay Beagle and Brooks Orpik scored game-winners as well.