Alex Ovechkin lifted the Prince of Wales Trophy Cheap DJ Chark Jersey , spun around and set it back down on a table.

The rest of the Capitals joined him for a team photo after beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-0 on Wednesday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, a victory that sent Washington to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.

A decade of playoff frustration is fading fast.

”I think Ovie has been on a mission,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. ”They wanted this game, no question.”

Ovechkin scored early and Andre Burakovsky added two second-period goals as the Caps continued to shed a label as postseason underachievers.

Braden Holtby stopped 29 shots for his second straight shutout and the Lightning, who led the NHL in goals during the regular season, failed to score in the last 159 minutes, 27 seconds of the series – a stretch of nearly eight periods.

Ovechkin, who had never advanced beyond the second round, scored 1:02 into the winner-take-all showdown he had described as probably the ”biggest game in my life.”

”The first goal was very important,” Ovechkin said. ”After that you could see we have all the momentum on our side. Holts was unstoppable today. He was special. Everybody was all in. Everybody was sacrificing their bodies. I think we all deserve the win.”

To earn a spot in the Stanley Cup Final, where they’ll play the Vegas Golden Knights, the Capitals beat the top-seeded Lightning three times on the road, improving to 8-2 away from home this postseason.

It’s Washington’s first Cup Final appearance since 1998 LeSean McCoy Bills Jersey , and the first during Ovechkin’s 13-year career.

”We played a great game,” defenseman John Carlson said. ”We deserved to win this.”

Two games after being a healthy scratch for Game 5, Burakovsky became the 17th player to score a goal for Washington in the playoffs this year – four shy of the NHL record – when he beat Andrei Vasilevskiy on a breakaway at 8:59 of the second period.

The winger, who played two games in the first round against Columbus before sitting out 10 straight with an upper-body injury, added a breakaway goal to make it 3-0 heading into the last period.

Nicklas Backstrom had an empty-netter to complete the rout.

”What a game. What an experience. We had a lot of guys pitching in,” winger T.J. Oshie said. ”The biggest guy of all had to be Holts. He played fantastic, back to back shutouts.”

Tampa Bay, which rebounded from losing the first two games at home to win three straight for a 3-2 series lead, had plenty of chances. A couple of shots clanged off the post, Yanni Gourde was unable to get his stick on a loose puck in front on an empty net and the game gradually slipped away.

Washington was the more physical team in evening the series with a bruising 3-0 victory in Game 6. They played with urgency from the start again Wednesday night and never let up.

Tampa Bay’s last goal in the series came 33 seconds into the second period of Game 5, which the Lightning went on to win 3-2.

”We’re here to win as team, no matter who gets the credit,” said Holtby Josh Allen Jersey , the fifth goalie to deliver a Game 7 shutout to clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup Final.

”I felt we could have won every game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. ”We ran into a tough Washington team that was probably feeling the same thing, and once you get this far you’ve probably done some magical things on the way.”

It was the 33rd time in league history that a Game 7 was required to determine a Stanley Cup finalist. Home teams are 21-12 in those games.

Tampa Bay also played Game 7 in the Eastern Conference final in 2015, when they blanked the New York Rangers, and again two years ago, when they lost 2-1 to Pittsburgh.

Both of those deciding games were on the road. The Lightning had never lost a Game 7 at home before Wednesday night.

”It’s going to take a few days to digest this. It’s tough to sit here right now and think of positive things and how it was a pretty great season,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. ”It doesn’t seem that way when you have this group – and we’ve been to this position before – and you can’t find a way to give yourself a chance a win. We thought we had that group. It’s just an empty feeling right now.”

Notes: Ovechkin and Backstrom made their 11th career Game 7 appearance, one shy of Boston’s Zdeno Chara for the most among active NHL players. In addition to Chara, only five other players in NHL history have appeared in more Game 7s: Patrick Roy (13), Scott Stevens (13), Glenn Anderson (12), Ken Daneyko (12) and Stephane Yelle (12). … Evgeny Kuznetsov’s assist on Ovechkin’s early goal extended his points streak to 10 games. … Vasilevskiy made 19 saves. The Lightning outshot the Capitals (29-23) for the first time in the series.

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Eight months after ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez hanged himself in prison, a new book by bestselling author James Patterson is reviving unanswered questions.

Patterson spoke with The Associated Press on Friday about what he calls ”the most fascinating Josh Jackson Packers Jersey , complicated and troubling crime story of our times.”

Hernandez, a former standout tight end for the New England Patriots, was found hanging by a bedsheet in his cell on April 19, hours before his ex-teammates were due to visit the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl victory. The 27-year-old athlete had been serving life without parole for a 2013 murder. Just days earlier, he had been acquitted of a separate double murder.

After his death, Hernandez was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease tied to head blows which can cause depression and violent mood swings.

Patterson’s book on the case, ”All-American Murder,” is set to be released Monday by Little, Brown and Company, and CBS is airing a companion ”48 Hours ” special Saturday night.

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AP: Most of your work tends to be fiction. What drew you to this real-crime story?

Patterson: I don’t usually do nonfiction, but I was compelled to do this story. You can’t take your eyes off this guy because of all his gifts: his good looks, the smile Rashaad Penny Youth Jersey , the beautiful fiancee, the baby girl, the $40 million NFL contract. When I was in my teens, my family moved up near Boston, and I became a fan of the Patriots and the other Boston teams. I still am to some extent.

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AP: Why do you think Hernandez killed himself if there was a chance – however small – of overturning his conviction and winning his freedom?

Patterson: Most people who suffer from brain damage do not become murderers. My take is if you take somebody with a psychopathic personality – somebody who enjoyed killing people – hit him in the head a few thousand times and add some PCP and weed, you have a nightmare. And there are a lot of suicides with CTE.

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AP: What do you make of the rumors that Hernandez may have been gay or bisexual and had a prison lover?

Patterson: We never talked to anybody who said there was something to that. He was in his cell 22+ hours a day. He had virtually no contact with any prisoners. What could he do?

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AP: Did Hernandez have some kind of jailhouse conversion? He wrote ”John 3:16” in ink on his forehead and in blood on a cell wall.

Patterson: He was clinging to this notion, real or imagined, that if he believed in Jesus he could be saved. But he was over the top with everything. His thinking was scrambled big-time.

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AP: Why does this case captivate people so powerfully?

Patterson: This is the most dramatic and surprising murder mystery in the last 25 years – including O.J. (Simpson). The story is just stunning, from his days as a well-behaved kid in high school to his time at the University of Florida to the NFL. It’s the most amazing fall from grace imaginable.

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