Devante Smith-Pelly had yet to take the ice, but the Capital One Arena crowd started chanting his name well before warmups. As radio announcer John Walton and Capitals analyst Mike Vogel discussed Smith-Pelly’s pending return from the American Hockey League in a pre-game video, persistent chants of “DSP, DSP” broke out.
Those cheers intensified when the 26-year-old was shown on the jumbotron for the first time.
But as happy as fans were to see Smith-Pelly in a Capitals uniform again, the fanfare mattered little compared to what the winger brought to his team in Washington’s 6-0 win Saturday over the Carolina Hurricanes.