Washington Capitals Photo Tribute to Scott Stevens.
Twenty-five years ago, an 18-year-old defenseman named Scott Stevens made the leap from the blueline of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers to the Washington Capitals. He ended up playing 22 seasons in the league, winning three Stanley Cup titles and playing in 1,635 regular season and 233 playoff games. Stevens has played more regular season and more postseason games than any other defenseman in NHL history.
On Monday, Stevens was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in his first year of eligibility. He went in alongside three of his longtime NHL peers: defenseman Al MacInnis and forwards Mark Messier and Ron Francis. All four were chosen in NHL drafts between 1979 and 1982, all were team captains in the NHL and all gained enshrinement in their first year of eligibility. Between them, they won a dozen Stanley Cup championships. That quartet of players and longtime hockey executive Jim Gregory make up the 2007 class of inductees for the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Stevens spent the first eight of those seasons, the first 601 of those regular season games and the first 67 of those playoff contests wearing a Capitals sweater. He led the team in assists twice and in penalty minutes five times. With 1,628 career penalty minutes, Stevens ranks second only to Dale Hunter (2,003) on Washington’s all-time franchise ledger in that department. With 429 career points as a Capital, Stevens still ranks among the franchise’s all-time top 10 (he’s ninth). Although he played only about a third of his career with the Caps, Stevens netted exactly half (98) of his 196 career goals in a Capitals uniform.
After Philadelphia chose Ron Sutter with the fourth overall choice in the 1982 Entry Draft, there were those within the Caps’ scouting contingent who were lobbying for the team to take Sutter’s twin brother Rich with the fifth pick. There was dissent in the ranks, but interim general manager Roger Crozier made an executive decision.
Washington spent its first choice (fifth overall) in the 1982 NHL Entry Draft on Stevens, a defenseman for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers who had led all rookie defensemen in scoring in that league with 42 points in 1981-82. Stevens never did get to show what he could do as a sophomore with Kitchener.
An offseason injury to blueliner Lee Norwood and a strong training camp showing on Stevens’ part landed the 18-year-old youngster a berth on the Washington blueline. At the time, the Capitals had never made the Stanley Cup playoffs. During Stevens’ eight-season tenure in the District, the Caps never missed the playoffs.
“He’s thrown three of the best checks I’ve seen in a couple of years,” Caps bench boss Bryan Murray, then in his first full season on the job, told The Hockey News in October of Stevens’ rookie season. “We’ve taken him aside and talked with him about position and using his partner, and he’s responded well. There’s no doubt in my mind he can step right in.
He worked at it, and he had help from a pair of newly acquired Caps defenders. Blueliners Rod Langway and Brian Engblom had come to the Capitals in a six-player trade with Montreal just prior to the start of training camp in 1982. For the early part of his career, Stevens was often paired with Engblom. The veteran guidance he got from Engblom and Langway combined with his own work ethic ensured that Stevens did not go back to juniors, and that he never spent a day of his 22-year career in the minor leagues.
That they did. In the season before the arrival of Stevens and Langway, the Capitals averaged just 11,377 paying customers a night. During the summer of 1982, newspapers were filled with speculation of whether or not team owner Abe Pollin would be able to keep the failing franchise in town. A group of worried fans formed a “Save the Caps” group and telethons and other fund-raising elements were introduced.
Beginning in 1982-83, attendance rose steadily, proving that quality hockey and a winning team would put people in the seats in Washington. Attendance rose to a franchise high of 17,251 in 1989-90, the first time the Caps reached the conference finals. But that’s also when Washington let Stevens loose, refusing to match a lucrative restricted free agent offer sheet proffered by the St. Louis Blues in the summer of 1990. Instead, the Caps chose to accept five first-round draft choices as compensation for the loss of one of the game’s best blueliners.