Editing Washington Capitals (section)

===Early years (1974–1982)===
The NHL awarded an expansion franchise to the city of Washington on June 8, 1972, and the Capitals joined the NHL as an [[expansion team]] for the [[1974–75 NHL season|1974–75 season]] along with the [[Kansas City Scouts]]. The Capitals were owned by [[Abe Pollin]] (also owner of the [[National Basketball Association]]'s [[Washington Wizards|Washington Bullets/Wizards]]). Pollin had built the [[Capital Centre (Landover, Maryland)|Capital Centre]] in suburban [[Landover, Maryland]], to house both the Bullets (who formerly played in [[Baltimore]]) and the Capitals. His first act as owner was to hire [[Hockey Hall of Fame|Hall of Famer]] [[Milt Schmidt]] as general manager.

With a combined 30 teams between the NHL and the [[World Hockey Association]] (WHA), the available talent was stretched thin. The Capitals had few players with professional experience and were at a disadvantage against the long-standing teams that were stocked with veteran players.

[[File:Defenseman Ray Bourque 1979.jpg|thumb|Capitals defenseman [[Darren Veitch]] chasing [[Boston Bruins]] defenseman [[Ray Bourque]] in 1980.|alt=Two hockey players in full pads and helmets on the ice, both in motion, with two others further behind them.]]
The Capitals' inaugural season was dreadful, even by expansion standards. They finished with the worst record in the league at 8–67–5; their 21 points were half that of their expansion brethren, the Scouts. The eight wins are the fewest for an NHL team playing at least 70 games, and the .131 winning percentage is still the worst in NHL history. They also set records for most road losses (39 out of 40), most consecutive road losses (37), and most consecutive losses (17). Head coach [[Jim Anderson (ice hockey)|Jim Anderson]] said, "I'd rather find out my wife was cheating on me than keep losing like this. At least I could tell my wife to cut it out." Schmidt himself had to take over the coaching reins late in the season.

In [[1975–76 NHL season|1975–76]], Washington went 25 straight games without a win and allowed 394 goals en route to another horrendous record: 11–59–10 (32 points). In the middle of the season, Schmidt was replaced as general manager by [[Max McNab]] and as head coach by [[Tom McVie]]. For the rest of the 1970s and early 1980s, the Capitals alternated between dreadful seasons and finishing only a few points out of the [[Stanley Cup playoffs]]; in [[1979–80 NHL season|1980]] and [[1980–81 NHL season|1981]], for instance, they were in playoff contention until the last day of the season. The one bright spot during these years of futility was that many of McNab's draft picks (e.g., [[Rick Green (ice hockey)|Rick Green]], [[Ryan Walter]], [[Mike Gartner]], [[Bengt-Åke Gustafsson|Bengt Gustafsson]], [[Gaetan Duchesne]], and [[Bobby Carpenter (ice hockey)|Bobby Carpenter]]) would impact the team for years to come, either as important members of the roster or as crucial pieces in major trades.

Pollin stuck it out through the Capitals' first decade, even though they were usually barely competitive. This stood in contrast to the Scouts; they were forced to move to [[Denver]] after only two years because their original owners did not have the resources or patience to withstand the struggles of an expansion team. By the summer of [[1981–82 NHL season|1982]], however, there was serious talk of the team moving out of the U.S. capital, and a "Save the Caps" campaign was underway.