Two weeks ago, Vincent Desharnais became the first Capitals player this season to be named “Legend of the Game,” an honor bestowed upon one key contributor after each win.
His first thought was: Man, it’s dark in here.
The award comes in the form of an old helmet with a mirrored visor, á la what Alex Ovechkin wore in 2005, when he was a rookie quick to deliver on all the promises made about his audacious skill. It’s been a long time. Visors like these are now banned by the International Ice Hockey Federation and have not been seen in the NHL in years. The 30-year-old Desharnais had never been around one. So while the defenseman was soaking in the moment, teammates cheering while he donned the helmet for his role in a 4-2 win over the Devils, he was also marveling at the lack of light.
Ovi could see in a visor like this?
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“Actually putting it on, it’s very tinted — like, very, very dark,” Desharnais said. “It’s mind-blowing that he was able to play with that.”
This is the 21st and final NHL season for 41-year-old Ovechkin. He’s insisted that he does not want much fuss around his farewell. But that insistence has sometimes been met with resistance. When his teammates considered how they wanted to celebrate each other after wins this year, they settled on something that would celebrate Ovechkin, too.
And maybe poke a little fun at just how long the star has been around.
“For the players to have their own thing that really means something to them, and they can laugh about and appreciate, I think is always great,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery told The Washington Sun. “I thought it was just very fitting.”
Washington has cycled through various celebratory postgame items over the years. An Abraham Lincoln-esque hat and beard. (“The Honest Abe Players’ Player of the Game.”) A yellow rope. (This one came from Arlington County Fire Station No. 2, near the Capitals’ practice facility, meant to suggest all working toward the same goal: “Pulling on the same rope.”) A karate-style headband known as a hachimaki. (Former head coach Peter Laviolette watched a lot of “Cobra Kai” during the pandemic.)
Some years come and go without any postgame items. The Capitals did not have one last year. Carbery does not like to press his own ideas if the players do not find one of their own: “I’ve always encouraged players to organically come up with something,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something that the coach forces.”
His team did not take long to settle on something this year. The players knew they wanted something connected to Ovechkin.
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“He’s a legend,” said forward Tom Wilson, the longest-tenured member of the roster besides Ovechkin and his only remaining teammate from the 2018 Stanley Cup. “It just seemed pretty fitting to do something to pay tribute to him in his last season.”
The Capitals have four wins since introducing the helmet and visor on Oct. 17. Desharnais has been joined so far in receiving the honor by Alex Tuch, Jack St. Ivany and Cole Hutson.
Wilson led the charge on brainstorming with player leadership. He was adamant the item should be something to honor Ovechkin. The idea of the old mirrored visor came from forward Anthony Beauvillier: “It just popped in my head,” he said. Washington hockey operations and equipment staff helped track down the right gear.
Ovechkin burst into the league two decades ago with a flashy style to match his game. The electric yellow laces. The perpetually tucked jersey. And, of course, the mirrored visor, which shielded the upper half of his face in a way vaguely reminiscent of RoboCop.
It quickly became a point of controversy. Opponents hated that it covered his eyes and made it harder to anticipate his movement with the puck. NHL marketing executives reportedly felt similarly — not because they believed the visor offered a competitive advantage but because they wanted fans to see as much of the young star as often as possible. Including his eyes.
After his rookie season, in June 2006, the league brought a potential ban of mirrored visors to a vote among general managers.
The GMs voted 29-1 in favor of a ban. The lone dissenting vote, naturally, was then-Capitals GM George McPhee.
Ultimately, the league did not follow through with codifying that ban into the rule book. But Ovechkin didn’t push it, and retired the mirrored visor anyway. (He eventually had to give up his tucked jersey, too, when the NHL tweaked its uniform rules in 2013. The yellow laces, of course, are still here.) Now, all these years later, in search of an item to symbolize what Ovechkin brought to the sport, his teammates knew what to choose.
“It was just, Can we get the helmet done? Can we get the visor done? And then hockey ops and our trainers and everyone sourced the stuff,” Wilson said. “It came together.”
Capitals staff fixed up an old helmet and found a visor in storage. (This one was not worn on the ice by Ovechkin in 2005 but is nearly identical to what he did wear.) Many of the current players are too young to have any original memories of the gear.
Some were not even born when Ovechkin entered the league. That includes Ilya Protas, who is now his linemate. (Earlier this season, when 20-year-old Protas scored on an assist from Ovechkin for the first time, the young forward was so excited that he took home the stick to save it.) Ovechkin’s future head coach was still in college: Carbery watched Ovechkin’s historic rookie campaign as a senior at D-III St. Norbert in Wisconsin. (“I remember thinking, Whoa, that’s interesting,” Carbery said of the mirrored visor. “It reminded me of the running backs in the NFL.”) Even the helmet itself is clearly a throwback from another era.
“Guys, I’m still young, by the way,” Ovechkin joked when Wilson presented him with the helmet in front of the team for the first time. The captain briefly placed it on his own head. Then he took it off and passed it on.
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