The 2007-08 Washington Capitals were the first Caps team in the Alex Ovechkin era to make the playoffs. After hiring head coach Bruce Boudreau earlier in the year, the Capitals went on an absolute tear at the end of the regular season (11-1 in their last 12 games), clinching the Southeast Division on the final day of their schedule.
Ovechkin and Boudreau recently relived their first playoff series together during a sit-down interview on Boudreau and Jeff Marek’s Hockey Lifers Podcast, discussing its controversial end and how the head coach uniquely responded to some officiating he believed was unjust.
In the first round of the 2008 postseason, the Capitals were matched up with a veteran Philadelphia Flyers team and managed to take them to the brink of elimination. After rallying from a 3-1 hole in the series, the Capitals eventually fell in overtime of Game 7 via a controversial power-play goal from Joffrey Lupul.
“Nobody thought we gonna make the playoffs and then, if you remember, we play against Philly and that was a bad call from ref in Game 7 in OT,” Ovechkin said.
The “bad call” that Ovechkin refers to was a two-minute minor penalty for tripping assessed to defenseman Tom Poti. The call, made by now-retired referee Paul Devorski, came just 4:15 into overtime. Lupul would put away a rebound past Capitals goaltender Cristobal Huet 1:51 later and eliminate the young Caps team.
“Did I ever tell you what I did?” Boudreau said. “Because it was Paul Devorski, who was the referee, I went to his house and I teepeed his house because he lived next door to me. About 20 rolls of toilet paper, throwing it over all the trees, his car, everything.”
Ovechkin laughed, clearly finding out about the story for the first time. “Oh, really?” he said.
Devorski, a native of Guelph, Ontario, moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, during his on-ice career so that he could be close enough to officiate minor-league games in Hershey and NHL games in Philadelphia, Washington, and Pittsburgh, and return home afterward.
Boudreau and his wife, Crystal, have lived in Pennsylvania since his coaching days in the AHL with the Bears, initially dwelling in Harrisburg before moving to Hershey. While Boudreau did take his revenge on Devorski, he eventually owned up to the prank and apologized for the mess he had caused.
“Two days later, I go knock on the door to apologize, I feel it’s time now,” Boudreau said in 2021. “He was the only guy with a pool in the neighborhood, so I had to apologize to him. He was just glad I didn’t egg his house; I only teepeed it. I was actually hoping it was gonna rain and it would stick to the windows.”
To Boudreau’s credit, he also got Devorski to admit the call was wrong when the Capitals had the referee call one of their preseason games the following year. “We looked at it on the computer together, and he goes, ‘Oh my god, did I do that?’” Boudreau said.
While the result of that playoff series was definitely not what Ovechkin and the Capitals wanted, the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer believes it helped the core of the team gain some much-needed experience that benefited them in the following seasons.
“Yeah, it was a bad call, but overall, that year was special year,” Ovechkin said. “We get some experience. It help us in the future. Bruce was great.”
Boudreau lasted four more seasons with the Capitals before being fired midway through the 2011-12 campaign. Ovechkin and the Capitals would have to wait 10 more years from that first series against the Flyers to finally climb the NHL postseason mountain and capture the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.