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Nate Schmidt on his return to DC: ‘It was phenomenal. I loved my time here.’

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Sunday, former Caps defenseman Nate Schmidt returned to Capital One Arena for the first time since being drafted by the Vegas Golden Knights in the Expansion Draft. And this may be shocking for some, but he had a good time.

Recently, Schmidt’s former teammate Karl Alzner had his homecoming game against the Capitals and went to the wrong penalty box.

“I saw that,” Schmidt said laughing via NBC Sports Washington’s Tarik El-Bashir. “I hope I’m not in that position. What are you saying?”

Schmidt did however admit to getting confused when first arriving for the game.

“I was walking the wrong way, ready to start the day,” Schmidt said. “I was following Huey (Caps TV Producer Steve “Huey” Farrell) on the way in. It was good to see some familiar faces that’s for sure.”

The night before the game, Schmidt caught up with many of his teammates, making light of a hair-cutting, uh, incident (?) last April. Not-barber Braden Holtby began giving Schmidt a mohawk in a hotel bathroom, but became timid and stopped midway through.

During the actual game, Schmidt skated a team-high 24:54 and tallied a secondary assist on Ryan Carpenter’s first period goal.

Schmidt, Vegas’s first-pairing defender, was tasked with shutting down the league leader in goals, Alex Ovechkin. Ovi had one shot on goal (11 shot attempts total), and failed for the second consecutive game against the Golden Knights to register a point.

“Nate did a great job on (Ovechkin),” Gallant said to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Steve Carp. “But it was a team effort.”

The Minnesota native also received a wide variety of tributes during the game.

The Capitals tweeted at Schmidt during the game that it was “[g]ood to see ya.” He also received a short welcome back message from the team in-house.

According to the AP’s Stephen Whyno, the crowd gave Schmidt a brief standing ovation.

But some Capitals fans criticized the team for not doing a video tribute, which they normally reserve for more veteran players.

Fans came in droves to show support for the former Caps player, printing out signs that RMNB provided on its website. (More photos here.)

Some fans even brought handmade signs they created themselves.

Schmidt trended in Washington DC during the actual game.

He tossed pucks to fans during warmups.

After the game, Schmidt seemed genuinely moved by the reception, liking droves of fans’ photos and videos on Instagram and Twitter.

He even asked, according to the the Vegas Golden Knights’ Twitter account, for one of RMNB’s signs.

Schmidt thanked his former fans and called it a “special day” on Twitter.

“It was phenomenal. I loved my time here,” Schmidt said. “It was an absolute blast. A lot of people reached out already. It was good to see a lot of familiar faces around. It’s just that I feel truly blessed that a lot of people gave me a lot of support over the years here that I had. I had a lot of fun here as well. It means a lot to me.”

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Golden Knights

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