PITTSBURGH — The Washington Capitals are well aware of their franchise’s inglorious past, one filled with unmet expectations and gut-wrenching collapses.

And they don’t care. It’s not 1992. It’s not 1996, 2009, or 2016 for that matter.

The Capitals have spent the better part of the season insisting this time, things will be different. That they’re not burdened by the weight of the team’s history of playoff flameouts, one most of the guys in red, white, and blue had nothing to do with.

Backed up to the precipice against a rival that’s tormented them for decades, the Capitals finally punched back. Hard.

Andre Burakovsky scored twice, Nicklas Backstrom got his sixth goal of the playoffs, and Washington won in Pittsburgh, 5-2, on Monday night to force a Game 7 in their seesaw Eastern Conference semifinal.

This is the fourth time the two teams will meet in a winner-take-all. The Penguins have won each of the previous three. Not that it bothers the Capitals.

‘‘I haven’t been here forever but, one, I've never been in a Game 7,’’ said Washington forward T.J. Oshie, who opened the scoring with a first-period power-play goal. ‘‘Two, I've never been past the second round. I know how much it would mean to me and I imagine it would be the same to ­every guy in this locker room.’’

The Capitals are as close as they've been to their first appearance in the conference finals in 19 years after rallying from a 3-1 series deficit by sprinting by Pittsburgh in the third period at home in Game 5 and then delivering a masterful performance 48 hours later.

A year ago, Washington trailed Pittsburgh, 3-1, in the second round, won Game 5 at home only to fall in overtime of Game 6. Intent on not repeating history yet again, the Capitals jumped on the defending Stanley Cup champions early and didn’t relent until the things were well in hand and a once raucous arena was largely empty.

‘‘Since Game 3 we've had a sense of calmness about what we’re doing,’’ Washington coach Barry Trotz said. ‘‘We’re having fun now. The fun part has been the obstacle.’’

Jake Guentzel picked up his playoff-leading ninth goal and Evgeni Malkin added another 52 seconds later late in the third period to make the score look cosmetically better, but the Penguins were never in it.

The Capitals controlled play throughout. Marc-Andre Fleury finished with 21 saves and received little help in front him.

‘‘I think we were probably guilty of making a few mistakes early on and then probably chasing our mistakes after that,’’ said Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby, who had an assist in 20 minutes but was largely a nonfactor in his second game back after missing Game 4 with a concussion.

Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan tinkered with his line combinations reuniting the ‘‘HBK’’ line (Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino, and Phil Kessel) that played an instrumental part in the team’s Cup run last spring.

Sullivan also moved rookie Guentzel alongside Malkin and put Conor Sheary with Crosby.

None of it worked as Washington pushed the Penguins around. Crosby took a nasty spill in the first period when he was slammed into the end boards head-first while he tangled with Carlson. He remained in the game but found little room to work.

Then again, neither did any of his teammates as Washington dominated.

Pittsburgh’s first shot in the opening 17 minutes was a 136-foot flip by Brian Dumoulin that made its way to Braden Holtby, who easily stopped it for the first of his 16 saves. By then the Capitals already had a 1-0 lead on Oshie’s fourth of the playoffs.

It wasn’t unlike most of the first four games of the series, when Washington would control play for long stretches only to have Pittsburgh expertly counter on its way to a 3-1 advantage.

This time, there would be no response by the Penguins.

Pittsburgh had trouble executing even the simplest of plays. Defenseman Ron Hainsey went to boards to retrieve a loose puck in the Penguins end only to get checked by Burakovsky, who skated away with the puck and stuffed a shot past Fleury 6:36 into the second .

Holding two-goal leads in the postseason has been a tenuous proposition at best, with 13 times teams letting them away so far in the postseason.

Yet instead of simply trying to protect its advantage, Washington kept pressing. Backstrom flipped a wrist shot by Fleury 16 seconds into the third to make it 3-0 and when John Carlson fired one past Fleury 11:17 into the third, the arena began emptying out.

It was a sweet moment for the Capitals, but they’re aware an even more blissful one awaits if they can duplicate their performance on Wednesday.

‘‘We’re going to have to be better,’’ Oshie said. ‘‘We’re going to have to push them out. That’s going to be a tough task but I think it’s something we have the right guys and the right mentality right now to do that.’’

.   .   .

The Edmonton Oilers bounced back from a tough loss with a resounding win, and put the pressure on the Anaheim Ducks.

Leon Draisaitl had three goals and two assists, Mark Letestu added two goals and two assists, and the Oilers cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Ducks on Sunday night, forcing a decisive Game 7 in their Western Conference semifinal series.

‘‘Obviously the season was on the line and we all had to step it up a notch and the whole group did,’’ Draisaitl said.

Game 7 is Wednesday night at Anaheim, with the winner advancing to face the Predators in the conference finals.

‘‘The big test is coming up,’’ Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. ‘‘We’re going to have to park this one quickly and get ready for a big battle down there.’’

The Ducks will be head back to Southern California looking to end a trend of having lost a Game 7 at home in four straight years. Anaheim was eliminated in the first round of 2013 (Detroit) and 2016 (Nashville), the second round in 2014 (Los Angeles), and the conference finals in 2015 (Chicago) in Game 7s at the Honda Center. The Ducks led each of those series, 3-2, before back-to-back losses ended their seasons.

‘‘Half of the guys in here haven’t been here for that stuff,’’ Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. ‘‘We’re going back with the preparation to be ready for a big game. It doesn’t really matter what the situation is. It is still win or go home.’’

The Oilers won twice in Anaheim to open this series and narrowly lost Game 5 there in double overtime.

Zach Kassian and Anton Slepychev also scored and Cam Talbot stopped 34 shots for the Oilers, who led, 5-0, after the first period.

Rickard Rakell scored midway through the second period for Anaheim. John Gibson was pulled after giving up three goals on six shots less than 8½ minutes into the game. Jonathan Bernier came on and finished with 25 saves.

‘‘I wasn’t very good,’’ Gibson said. ‘‘I have to come up with a couple of saves and maybe it’s different, maybe it’s not. As it went on they kind of took it to us, it wasn’t our best. I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be and I kind of let them down.’’

Slepychev extended the Oilers’ lead to 6-0 in the opening minute of the second period before Rakell got the Ducks on the scoreboard just shy of the nine-minute mark.

‘‘For us to come out in the second period and get that sixth goal, that was big,’’ Letestu said. ‘‘It showed we weren’t going to get back on our heels and possibly let them get back into the hockey game.’’

The Oilers were up, 3-0, on Friday night and on the cusp of taking a 3-2 series lead home when the Ducks became just the second team in NHL playoff history to erase a three-goal deficit in the last four minutes of regulation. Ducks center Ryan Kesler had his glove on Talbot’s pad when Rakell put a backhand between his pads to tie it with 15 seconds remaining. Corey Perry then scored the double-overtime winner.

‘‘What we experienced in Game 4 and 5 with two comebacks by them, we knew we had to keep our foot on the gas pedal and the hockey gods gave us a chance in Game 7,’’ Oilers forward Milan Lucic said.