The Capitals celebrate after winning Game 5 of their second-round series with the Penguins. Three games-to-one series leads have been overcome ten times by Washington opponents, and twice by recent Pittsburgh opponents. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

When the Washington Capitals hold the Stanley Cup trophy high in June, hug each other and talk about the crazy rutted road they traveled, they’ll point back to Mother’s Day Eve as the game that saved their season, that reminded them of who they were all year and inspired their run. They’ll recall a team meeting Friday when they vowed that, after all they’d accomplished, they weren’t going to get clobbered out of the playoffs by the Penguins in five games.

“We haven’t experienced true adversity all season. We did tonight and we came through,” said Justin Williams, who scored the third goal in the Caps’ 3-1 win over Pittsburgh in Game 5 on Saturday night at Verizon Center. “Now we put a little pressure on them. . . . We have to learn from this. We have to own the big moments.”

“We’re not ready to stop playing yet,” said goalie Braden Holtby, whose two brilliant stops in the second period, just minutes apart, reminded everyone how he tied the NHL record for most wins in a season (48). “We’re prepared to play hockey for a long time, and that means we have to be prepared to play through some adversity.”

“A lot of us think this is the best team we’ve had here — on the ice and off the ice. Nobody wants to be finished right now. That’s the best we’ve played in a long time. . . . We’re preparing to go deep,” said Karl Alzner, perhaps tempting the hockey gods since the Caps still need back-to-back wins to go anywhere, except home.

So, the new internal narrative is set, the course charted. Multiple players even used the same phrases. Yup, it’s group-brainwash time. The Caps are still going to win that darn Cup, reverse their curse and use their comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Pens as a delicious pivot point. They’ll remember Saturday’s desperation win all their lives.

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[Nicklas Backstrom believes defense is key to getting hands on Stanley Cup ]

Unless, of course, they don’t — then they won’t. Game 5? Barely remember that one.

If they don’t survive the Pens, they’ll wonder why they waited until they were on the verge of elimination to close ranks, to do that whole band-of-brothers thing and recognize their true plight. They’ll look back at their brave words Saturday and wonder why they were such a bunch of chumps, getting in a spot where one strong Pens game, even one fluke goal, could sink them. Or maybe they’ll think the Pens were better, hotter, luckier — whatever combo helps ’em sleep.

However, the Capitals are unquestionably right about one vital thing. Their Game 5 win is exactly how such inspiring playoff crusades can start. Many title treks in the NBA, MLB or NHL playoffs — and they all take weeks to evolve their themes — start with an escape, an almost-dead team rising and, then, battling on with a sense of toughened resolve and destiny.

The Miami Heat won the 2013 NBA Finals after Ray Allen hit a three-point shot with 5.2 seconds left to force overtime and save their season in Game 6. The whole hoop nation was ready to put crowns on the brows of every San Antonio Spur — until they weren’t.

Last year, the Kansas City Royals appeared so doomed, down to a 1-in-50 chance to win Game 4 of their Division Series, that the governor of Texas tweeted, “Congrats to the Astros on advancing to the ALCS.” The Royals, down 6-2 in the eighth, came back to win, then used that game to ignite a series of comebacks that shredded every MLB record for improbability, stacking nightly mini-miracles like bats in a rack. Result: first World Series title in 30 years.

[Barry Trotz changes up forward combos and is pleased with the results]

The Kansas City Royals wouldn’t have won last year’s World Series without an improbable rally from an eighth-inning 6-2 deficit against Houston in an elimination game in the division series. (Orlin Wagner/Associated Press)

The Caps have “only” been in existence for 42 years and have been going to the NHL playoffs for “just” 33 years. Chicago Cubs fans know you can go 108 years without a title. In the same Verizon Center where the Caps play, the Washington Wizards have gone 38 years without a championship and don’t look like they’ll win one anytime soon.

But in whichever year the Caps do win a Stanley Cup, whether it’s 2016 or 2080 (which still wouldn’t equal the Cubs’ drought), something will probably happen that strongly resembles what is transpiring now — a three-games-to-one deficit against a nemesis foe starts to turn.

In fact, if the Caps have actually reached a turning point, then a clear-cut 3-1 win with no last-minute game-defining dramatics will probably seem tame a month from now. The feats the Caps will need — starting in Pittsburgh in Game 6 on Tuesday, then who knows how many more times thereafter — will make Game 5 seem prosaic.

Not saying they will pull it off. Just saying that if any team thinks it’s ever going to win a championship, especially when it is a franchise that’s famous for blowing two-game leads 10 times, which ought to be statistically impossible, or being upset or even being cursed for the past 32 springs, then it’s going to have to do a bunch of amazing stuff.

“We were on the other end last year,” Caps Coach Barry Trotz said of his team’s three-games-to-one lead that evaporated in the second round against the Rangers. “We felt pain. [Lost] Game 7 in overtime. The series can change so quickly. Last year [in Game 5], there wasn’t much left with the Rangers. They really threw a hope puck to the net, and it hits one of our guys and goes in the net and it changed everything . . . probably changed their belief system.”

[Dan Steinberg: Caps have problems, but Alex Ovechkin isn’t one of them]

If any team in any town understands how a two-game lead can be turned on its head, how emotions and breaks can suddenly reverse directions, it is Washington and its Caps. The Pens have blown two 3-1 leads in recent years. But, and I never quite believe this even as I type the words, the Caps have blown a two-game lead in 10 playoff series since 1985. No team anywhere, any sport, can approach that mark for statistical absurdity. So, when the Caps do win a Stanley Cup, you know, sure as karma, at some point they’ll trail in a series by two games.

“That’s the great thing about sports in a seven-game series. Until you look back [later], you don’t know what’s going to change it. It could be a big save. It could be a goal that just goes your way. You just don’t know,” Trotz said. “There’s a lot of randomness to sports. It’s bounces, it’s a turnover, it’s a save . . . it’s a reaction after a goal. It is a deck of cards and you don’t know what you’re going to be dealt sometimes. Whatever you’re dealt, you have to play your hand.”

When the Caps head to Pittsburgh, one thought will be in every mind: Shut up and deal.