As Caps, Wizards hit playoffs, which DC team will win first?

Wizards/Capitals Roundtable

WASHINGTON — We asked this last year, upon the Capitals’ second-round playoff exit, but it feels like the right time to revisit the question: Which D.C. team will be the next to claim a championship?

The case could be made for every local team, when you consider that Washington is the only city currently sporting a winning record in each of the Big 5 professional leagues.

Both the Caps and Wizards begin their quests this week, with the top-seeded Capitals opening first-round play against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday at Verizon Center and the fourth-seeded Wiz doing the same against either the Atlanta Hawks or Milwaukee Bucks over the weekend. Incredibly, this is just the eighth time in the 43 seasons that each team has been playing in Washington that they have both made their respective leagues’ postseason and just the third time in the last 30 years.

Only once have the teams combined to win more than 10 games in the same postseason year, when each advanced one round in 2015. The Caps and Wizards combined to win a record 104 regular season games this year. Whether they will set a new combined postseason record — or possibly even quench D.C.’s championship drought — remains to be seen.

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