updated 12:09 a.m. ET April 6, 2008

WASHINGTON - Long before the final horn sounded, the sea of red-clad fans turned the arena into an earsplitting din of cheers for their team, “M-V-P!” chants for Alex Ovechkin, a chorus of “Bruuuuuuce” for their coach. Even “Hip, hip, Hu-et!” for the goaltender.

The owner responded by blowing a kiss to the crowd. After three painful, rebuilding seasons of consecutive last-place finishes, the Washington Capitals had a lot of pent-up celebrating to do.

When the clock hit 0:00, Ovechkin jumped into the arms of Cristobel Huet, and the Capitals were finally on the way to the playoffs.

Make room in the postseason for Ovechkin and the Capitals, who needed only 4½ months to go from worst in the NHL to Southeast Division champions. Washington snagged its first postseason berth since 2003 — and put their Russian superstar and MVP candidate in hockey’s showcase tournament for the first time — with a 3-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night in their final regular-season game.

“There’s a little bit of destiny in this team,” said owner Ted Leonsis, who took part in the “red-out” by wearing a Capitals home jersey. “They’re very confident. It might be that they’re young and that they don’t know history. They don’t know about anything but looking forward.”

Tomas Fleischmann, trade-deadline pickup Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Semin scored for the Capitals, whose seven-game winning streak is the franchise’s longest in 15 years. Huet, another late-season acquisition, made 25 saves to win his ninth straight start.

The Capitals were easily the worst the NHL had to offer — 6-14-1 — when coach Glen Hanlon was fired on Thanksgiving Day and replaced by career minor league coach Bruce Boudreau, who turned the team’s personality upside-down by introducing an attacking style featuring the league’s most prolific offensive player (Ovechkin), the NHL’s top goal-scoring defenseman (Mike Green, 18 goals) and a rookie of the year contender (Nicklas Backstrom, franchise-rookie record 55 assists).

“There was never a word of ’We couldn’t’ or ’We won’t’ or ’We can’t,”’ Boudreau said. “It was always pushing through and believing in ourselves. I just hope I wake up tomorrow and look and ’We are in.’ This whole season’s been a dream.”

Ovechkin didn’t find the net Saturday, but he’ll end the regular season as the NHL’s runaway leading goal-scorer with 65, the most in the NHL in a dozen years. He’s also a sure bet to win the points title with 112, making him the fifth player to lead the league in both in the last 35 years, an elite group that includes Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Phil Esposito, Jarome Iginla and Guy Lafleur.

“Oh, yeah, this is one of my dreams,” Ovechkin said. “Now we’re there. It’s only one step. Now we can think about playoff games.”

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