“It doesn’t matter how good your record is,” owner Ted Leonsis said. “Until you win a Stanley Cup, you can’t claim to be among the elite teams. I’d like to know what it’s like to go deeper in the playoffs.”

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“We have something to prove and, come playoff time this year, hopefully we will be at a peak,” the coach said.

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Stop me if you’ve heard variations on this theme before.

(Each of the preceding lines was published in 2010, 2015, 2010, 2011, 2003, 1987, and 2011, respectively. They came from The Post, The Washington Times, The Associated Press and the Washington Examiner. “Stop me if you’ve heard variations on this theme before” was written by my pal Thom Loverro five years ago this month, and I just couldn’t bring myself to write yet another variation on that theme.

So I decided to do the most deeply cynical and soulless thing I’ve ever done: Construct an entire Capitals preview column using only complete sentences (with a few tiny edits) that appeared in previous Capitals preview stories. I am not a deeply cynical and soulless person — at least, when I’m not in Ashburn — and by Thursday night, I will be all-in on covering a new hockey season. But my first instinct at my first Caps practice this fall was to think, “Sheesh, is it April yet?”

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“It’d be nice to just jump back into June or May, and say okay, let’s have another crack at it,” Tom Wilson said that day. “But that’s not the way it works.”

Mature grown-ups realize that professional sports offer something grander than just playoff elimination games. On the other hand, once in a while, you just want to be immature. So here’s the rest of my Capitals season preview column, patched together from 30 years of preseason what-ifs. I tried linking to the source material whenever possible.)

One of the worst things that could happen to this team come April is to hoist another Presidents’ Trophy. In the last [14] seasons, only two teams have won the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup.

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When we last saw the Capitals, they were climaxing a wildly successful [regular season] with an excruciatingly painful playoff setback. They find ways to lose that Hollywood scriptwriters scarcely could imagine. They’ve made us all a little jaded. Heck, they’ve made themselves even a little jaded.

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Leonsis came out recently and said the Caps need to make sure they remember the regular season is important, too. But more than anything else, it’s a means to an end — getting into the top eight in the East to exorcise the demons.

“We know that’s part of the deal here this year,” a veteran right winger said, “is that everybody’s going to be waiting to see what happens in the playoffs, and there’s not much you can do about it. You’ve got to live with it.”

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“Ultimately our team is going to be judged by how we do in the playoffs,” another veteran said. “We could win 60, 65 games and people wouldn’t care. For us to take the next step as an organization there has to be playoff success.”

Fans and reporters in this city that is quietly growing into a hockey hotbed are still talking about the latest in an annual series of springtime disappointments. This is the challenge going into the NHL season for the organization and its fans. Can you separate the two — regular season and playoffs — and enjoy the success of one enough to overcome the frustration of another?

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“I don’t think we should ever, ever, ever, take making the playoffs for granted,” Leonsis said. “That’s one thing I’m trying to protect the franchise from. It’s not a given.”

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“We have a tendency here of talking about the Stanley Cup in September,” the coach said. “We expect to be good and want to be good, but overconfident is the last thing we have a right to be.”

“The only thing we can focus on now is the [82] games, one at a time,” one veteran said. “We can’t think about the playoffs now.”

Too bad the Capitals can’t do just that — skip the 82-game grind and get straight to the heart of the matter. Patience and resolve, born out of perennial playoff heartbreak, have become part of the Caps’ offseason strategy. It takes something special to win a Stanley Cup, something that’s hard to define. Obviously talent is a major part, and having great or at least very good goaltending is essential. But plenty of teams, like last year’s Caps, put that mix together and came up short.

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“If I had to guess what a championship team is — since I haven’t experienced that — I would guess the makeup we have on this team is the type of makeup that you need,” one defenseman said.

It’s easy to be optimistic in October. Every year as we stand on the brink of a new season there is a sense of promise and possibility. And yet there’s an optimism that this could be the chance. Players are tired of seasons in which the team that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. After several years of building to this point, there are no more excuses for the Washington Capitals — it is time to win, and win big.

“If something ever happens that we don’t do it, I think it is going to be a huge failure,” one a veteran said. “To a guy, everybody would tell you the same thing: We all have really high expectations. We can’t control some things, but if we have our team together, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go a long way.”

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“This is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” the coach said. “We’re optimistic. We believe this is a heck of a hockey team.”

“It is hard to push through and win a Cup, but people seem to think we’re one of the teams that can do it,” the general manager said.

“In the regular season, we’re usually right there, but obviously we haven’t been there in the playoffs, for one reason or another,” the coach said. “We intend to change that.”

“We’re all professionals and we’re just going to have to use it as a motivator to make sure we do peak and we are ready at the right time for the next playoffs,” a defenseman said.

“Every year, we talk about, ‘This team can do something,’ ” the captain said. “I think right now, it’s not [for] talking. We have to do it.”

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(Information from The Associated Press, The Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, The Boston Herald, The Canadian Press and The Washington Post was used in this report. And by “information,” I literally mean full, complete sentences. The complete bibliography is below, roughly in order of use. Several articles were quoted more than once.)

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Bibliography

White, Joseph. (2010, Sept. 18.) “Angry Capitals eager to erase playoff misery.” The Associated Press.

Feinstein, John. (2015, Oct. 11.) “For Capitals, a cautious — and auspicious — opening night at Verizon Center.” The Washington Post.

Hamilton, Tracee. (2010, Sept. 24.) “Playoff run would ease Caps’ pain.” The Washington Post.

Wise, Mike. (2011, Sept. 17.) “Ovechkin, Caps should put pain to use.” The Washington Post.

Fachet, Robert. (1987, Oct. 7.) “Capitals say 2nd spot in division not good enough this season.” The Washington Post.

Elfin, David. (2003, Oct. 9.) “The next step? Caps owner Leonsis upbeat about season.” The Washington Times.

Loverro, Thom. (2011, Oct. 6.) “This season Capitals need an alternate ending.” The Examiner.

Wise, Mike. (2010, Oct. 8.) “For the Capitals, only one prize matters.” The Washington Post.

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Hochberg, Len. (1995, Sept. 11.) “New season, familiar goal: Opening camp with new look, Caps keep eyes on prize.” The Washington Post.

Fachet, Robert. (1987, Sept. 11.) “Capitals’ opening bid is for brighter October.” The Washington Post.

Whyno, Stephen. (2011, Oct. 7.) “A Cup for the Caps? It’s not unrealistic to think this is the season Washington brings home a championship. The Washington Times.

Canadian Press. (1989, Oct. 6.) “Caps have trouble forgetting last year.” The Globe and Mail.

Steinberg, Dan. (2013, Oct. 4.) “Ted Leonsis still thinks the Nats are baseball’s best team.” The Washington Post.

Snyder, Rick. (2009, Oct. 1.) “Capital appreciation on eve of opener.” The Examiner.

Fachet, Robert. (1989, Oct. 6.) “Capitals hope for flying start.” The Washington Post.

Harris, Stephen. (2015, Oct. 11.) “Capital improvement: Holtby, Washington believe time is right.” The Boston Herald.

Kornheiser, Tony. (1997, Oct. 1.) “With old face off, Caps get a new look.” The Washington Post.

Masisak, Corey. (2008, Oct. 10.) “The time is now: After an improbable division crown, coaches, management and players expect a mostly intact Capitals squad to make a run deep into the playoffs.” The Washington Times.

Masisak, Corey. (2009, Oct. 1.) “Same faces, same goal for the Capitals: The rebuilding process complete and their continuity intact, the Capitals’ best chance to capture their first title has arrived.” The Washington Times.