Mr. Game 7’s clutch heroics more than just a sideshow

Washington Capitals right wing Justin Williams celebrates with Evgeny Kuznetsov after Williams scored a goal against the Nashville Predators. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

With a pair of dominant victories over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Games 5 and 6, the Washington Capitals climbed off the cliff’s edge and found level ground.

The Presidents’ Trophy-winning club now stands face-to-face with its longtime rival, the two set for the Game 7 most thought was a fairly likely possibility all along. It’ll be an understandably nervous affair for most involved, but for one Capitals veteran it’s an all too familiar story.

Justin Williams, who’s worn the ‘Mr. Game 7’ title for more than a decade, will take the ice for his eighth career Game 7 on Wednesday evening, looking to build on one of the most improbable records in all of sports.

It’s been talked about ad nauseam, but don’t get it twisted – Williams’ Game 7 history isn’t just a quirky fun fact for writers to trot out when need be. For a sport that regularly prompts discussions of ‘clutch’ performers and their ‘intangibles,’ often without much concrete evidence, Williams is an outlier. He’s one of the few who boasts a resumé lengthy enough, and dotted with enough game-changing performances, that his ability to rise to the moment is undeniable.

It isn’t just that Williams is undefeated in Game 7s – which he is – or that he’s posted a picture-perfect stat line of seven goals and seven assists in those games – which he has. A deeper look into the numbers shows that there’s more to his do-or-die efforts, that this isn’t simply a case of Williams getting lucky with a handful of breakout games.

Rather, this oddly specific environment truly is where he’s at his best.

Case in point: the veteran has done more than rack up 14 points in those seven series-clinchers – he’s also factored in on the game-winning goal in five of those seven contests, scoring the game-winner himself twice and registering a primary assist on the winner three other times. On five of those seven nights, he was the game’s top scorer, either finishing with the game lead in points or tying for said lead.

Past records often mean little when game day arrives, but it’s tough to discount those numbers.

Perhaps most impressively, these timely performances have spanned Williams’ entire career. He kicked off his Mr. Game 7 mythos back in 2003, scoring the game-winner for the Philadelphia Flyers (adding two assists as well) to edge out the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the post-season.

Three years later, he did it again, posting four points (and another game-winning assist) over two Game 7s during the Carolina Hurricanes march to the 2006 Stanley Cup.

Williams endured an absurd four Game 7s with the Los Angeles Kings, three of them coming in succession during the Kings’ 2014 championship run.

That trio of Game 7s with Los Angeles was an almost comical confirmation of Williams’ clutch performance in series-enders, especially in regards to his knack for getting in on game-winners. He set up the winner in a first-round Game 7 to oust the San Jose Sharks for the second straight year, posted a casual goal and an assist in a second-round Game 7 to take out the Anaheim Ducks, and finally, assisted on the overtime winner in round three’s Game 7 to eliminate the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks.

Unsurprisingly, the Cobourg, Ontario native earned a Conn Smythe Trophy for his efforts.

Make no mistake, the fact that Williams is now in a position to flex that Game 7 muscle for the Capitals is no coincidence. A quick look at Washington’s recent history in the playoffs confirms as much.

Since Alex Ovechkin‘s rookie season, the Capitals have made it to the post-season eight times, excluding their present run. Six of those eight playoff runs ended in Game 7 losses. Washington did manage to claw out wins in three first-round Game 7s over that span, but in all three years that they did (2009, 2012, and 2015), they lost in a Game 7 in the very next round.

Needless to say, do-or-die matches have been a sore spot for the Capitals and there’s a fair chance they brought in Williams just in case they found themselves faced with a similar hill to climb once again, with the memories of lost series past creeping up.

Even with that history in mind, it would’ve been a bit absurd to draw it up as perfectly as this. Game 7 against the Penguins, the club that has thwarted the Capitals’ playoff hopes time and time again. A winner-take-all rematch one year after Pittsburgh stomped all over Washington’s Presidents’ Trophy campaign and claimed another Stanley Cup for Sidney Crosby and Co.

The Capitals hope to change the narrative this time around, but to do so they’ll have to rely on one of the game’s most tried and true scripts.

Mr. Game 7, you’re up.

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