ARLINGTON [url=http://www.nashvillepredatorsteamshop.com/authentic-filip-forsberg-jerse... , Va. (AP) Raw emotion came from Alex Ovechkin as he wore an ”Eastern Conference champions” hat for the first time.”Oh my God,” he said. ”It’s unbelievable. I can’t explain my emotions. I’m just happy for my boys, for organizations, for fans. Finally.”Finally.Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals will play for the Stanley Cup. It’s a journey 14 years in the making from Ovechkin being the first overall draft pick to the greatest goal scorer of this generation – and a player who until this year hasn’t made it out of the second round of the playoffs through little fault of his own. Yet he’s gotten an uneven proportion of the blame.Ovechkin essentially willed the Capitals to the Cup Final with 12 goals, 10 assists and the best postseason of his career. In one spring, the 32-year-old Russian superstar has ended Washington’s 20-year final drought, slayed demons and destroyed the old narrative that he can’t get the job done when it matters most.”The special thing is because we’re winning,” Ovechkin said before the Capitals left for Las Vegas. ”That’s the whole thing. That’s all I can say. We win and we move forward. We’ve never been in this position before. All my career, I played for this team, and we never get the success like that.”Ovechkin bore the brunt of nine playoff appearances ending after the first or second round despite being a point-a-game player. With time running out on chasing the trophy he knew all about as a kid, this season has featured a different-looking player.General manager Brian MacLellan sees a new level of maturity on and off the ice that he believes comes from Ovechkin getting married. A different offseason training regimen allowed Ovechkin to produce more at even strength, and the result was an NHL-leading 49 goals.”I think the way he plays this year is more within the team structure,” MacLellan said. ”This is the most systematic he’s played throughout his career, in my mind.”In the playoffs, Ovechkin has raised his game even further. His vintage physicality and his willingness to get his body in front of shots and hustle down ice on the backcheck have been noticeable.”When you see him blocking shots, you see him coming back hard, you see him playing physical, he’s getting more and more excited,” linemate Tom Wilson said. ”It seems like every round you win, he’s playing even harder. And that’s what you need out of your top guys. When he’s going, you’re aware he’s on the ice. Everyone in the building knows he’s on the ice.”During the third round, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said Ovechkin has ”taken 14 years of frustration out in one playoffs.” Ovechkin is reluctant to talk about previous playoff disappointments, but they’ve been tied to him.Even though this is a team sport, someone has to be the greatest player to never win the Cup. Until now, arguably that’s Ovechkin, a label he has the chance to shed beginning in Game 1 of the final Monday at the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.”He’s an elite player that shoulders the responsibility of how our team performs, whether that is fair or unfair, and I think that happens to all those elite players in the league,” MacLellan said. ”They get built up when they win and they get torn down a little bit when they lose. It is not always fair, because it is a team game. And for him, he has shouldered a lot of the burden that has gone on here for the last 11 years or whatever the time period has been, and hopefully this is a time when he gets payback and enjoys it this year.”Ovechkin is enjoying hockey seemingly like never before. Coach Barry Trotz wondered if being the face of the franchise and carrying the burden weighed on Ovechkin all those years.Getting past the Pittsburgh Penguins and the second round made Ovechkin look ”freer” in Trotz’s eyes.”You want your top guys to be on a mission, and I think that has freed him to carry on the mission rather than have to explain why he didn’t go farther and have to do it every spring,” Trotz said. ”He’s having fun. He’s producing. He’s all in. If you’re going to have success, you have to have all-in contribution, and he has. I think he’s enjoying the run, the playoffs, maybe for the first time in a long time.”Since returning home to Washington after advancing to the Final, Ovechkin said fans have come up to him to say thank you, good job, and to express pride. But he doesn’t want to celebrate too much because he knows how difficult every step of the playoffs is to conquer.”It’s hard. It’s not easy,” Ovechkin said. ”This organization, it’s been too long to be in this position, and I’ve never been in this position. Only Brooks Orpik has won the Stanley Cup and been in the final. Now this group is excited and we’re ready to go.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals— LAS VEGAS (AP) At the start of the NHL season, most figured the Vegas Golden Knights would be struggling heading into the final month and would be sellers at the trade deadline.Instead, they’re perched atop the league standings with 86 points, ahead of Eastern Conference-leading Tampa Bay, which has 85.William Karlsson scored two goals and Reilly Smith had three assists to lead the Golden Knights to a 6-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Friday night.Tomas Hyka [url=http://www.nashvillepredatorsteamshop.com/authentic-juuse-saros-jersey]J... Saros Jersey[/url] , Jonathan Marchessault, Tomas Nosek and David Perron also scored for the Golden Knights.Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury, who is four wins shy of becoming the 13th goalie in NHL history to register 400 career wins, stopped 30 shots.Vegas, which has won five of its past six games, improved to 16-2-1 against Pacific Division teams.”I hate having seven-game homestands to be honest with you because you’re going to have some ups and downs,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. ”It’s tough to keep your guys focused all the time. But overall, to go 5-2 on this homestand, I thought we played for the most part good hockey. We scored a lot of goals. I thought our defensive game gotta get a little bit better. But we’re playing well, overall it’s been very good, I’ve been very happy with it.”Vancouver, which dropped to 3-7-1 in February, is 5-11-1 against intradivision foes.The Canucks got goals from Sven Baertschi, Thomas Vanek and Daniel Sedin.Anders Nilsson, who played in his 100th career game, had 19 saves for the Canucks before being replaced by Jacob Markstrom at the start of the third period. Markstrom made 8 stops for Vancouver.”It’s definitely frustrating, I’m not happy with the loss,” Vancouver coach Travis Green said. ”The players gotta realize that against a quick team they’re not gonna have as much time and space if you turn the puck over a couple of times inside their blue line.”Vegas opened the scoring when Hyka, playing in just his third NHL game, scored his first career goal 2:29 into the game.”I’m kind of still getting used to (the NHL), everything is faster compared to the IHL, but I play with two really good guys and they make a lot of things there for me and I’m just really happy I can play with them,” said the 24-year-old Hyka, about his linemates Cody Eakin and Ryan Carpenter.The Canucks then displayed a little bit of offensive prowess of their own, tying the game when Sam Gagner’s pass slipped under Vegas defenseman Luca Sbisa and Baertschi punched it home, then taking a 2-1 lead when Vanek tapped in a loose puck.Vegas reclaimed the lead on a pair of Karlsson goals, late in the first period and 5:36 into the second. Karlsson’s two goals give him 33 for the season, third-best in the NHL behind Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (36) and Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin (34).The Golden Knights extended their lead to 5-2 on Marchessault’s 22nd goal of the season, and Tomas Nosek’s seventh of the campaign.Sedin, who notched his 16th goal of the season when he beat Fleury top shelf with a power play goal 4:28 into the third period, said the Canucks haven’t seen a team faster than the Golden Knights all season.”If you’re a second too late, they’re gonna pass right by you and come the other way,” said Sedin, who has seven points in his last seven games. ”These guys can score, they got offensive skill up front and we knew it was going to be a back and forth game. We played good in the first and good in the third, but in the second it got away from of us.”Perron was credited with an empty net goal when the Canucks inadvertently sent the puck the length of the ice for the final margin. Along with his assist on Nosek’s goal, Perron tied his career-high of 57 points.DEALING:Just prior to the game, the Golden Knights were in fact involved in a three-team deal with Ottawa and Pittsburgh in which Vegas gave up American Hockey League prospect Tobias Lindberg. In turn, the Golden Knights will receive Penguins forward Ryan Reaves and a fourth-round pick from the Canucks. The deal also sent Senators center Derick Brassard to the Penguins, who sent defenseman Ian Cole, goalie prospect Filip Gustavsson and draft picks to the Senators.While the trade deadline is Monday at Noon eastern, several of the Golden Knights said the team is too focused on their playoff push to worry about major moves affecting the roster.”We definitely have good players all around our lineup … we like our team, we like the chemistry here,” Marchessault said before the game. ”Stuff can happen and you don’t necessarily expect it. A lot of things can happen and it’s out of your control, it’s part of the game. At the end of the day you gotta trust your organization.”NOTESVegas has now scored a power-play goal in 14 of its last 16 games. … The Golden Knights are 25-3-0 record when scoring the first goal of the game while their .893 win percentage when recording the opening mark leads the NHL. … Baertschi now has seven points (3 goals, 4 assists) over the past seven games.UP NEXTVancouver: At Arizona on SundayVegas: At Los Angeles on Monday