- Ovechkin named Nathan MacKinnon the one current star who could wear his old yellow laces and mirrored visor
- The visor lasted a single season before NHL general managers voted 29-1 to outlaw it in 2006
- Read below for the Theo Fleury connection and why Ovechkin still wants the shield back
Alex Ovechkin has picked a successor for the most recognizable look he ever wore.
Ovechkin was asked at Fanatics Fest in New York which player in the league today could pull off the yellow skate laces and mirror-tinted visor he showed up with as a rookie. He answered with one word.
“MacKinnon,” Ovechkin said. Asked whether the Avalanche center would ever actually do it, he did not back off. “He should,” Ovechkin said, then laughed.
The choice holds up. MacKinnon just led the NHL with a career-high 53 goals to claim his first Rocket Richard Trophy, and he already owns the 2024 Hart, a Stanley Cup from 2022 and four straight 100-point seasons.
There is a tighter link than that. MacKinnon and Ovechkin are two of only three players in league history to win a Cup, a Hart, a Ted Lindsay, a Calder and a goal-scoring title. Mario Lemieux is the third.
Getting MacKinnon into the gear is a different problem. He keeps his equipment about as plain as it gets, down to an unsealed white-taped knob and a standard black blade wrap.
Ovechkin did not invent the look either. Theo Fleury wore yellow laces and a tinted visor in Calgary years earlier, and Ovechkin told him as much at a morning skate in 2019. Here is Fleury on the day he found out:
The NHLPA put the two of them side by side a day later:
Only half of that look survived. Ovechkin wore the mirrored shield through his 2005-06 Calder season, then Martin Brodeur spent the following summer complaining that he could not see the shooter’s eyes.
NHL general managers voted 29-1 in June 2006 to outlaw mirrored and darkly tinted visors. Washington general manager George McPhee cast the lone vote to keep them.
Ovechkin has never let it go. He brought Brodeur up again on the Hockey Lifers Podcast last fall.
“Yeah, I think it was Marty Brodeur said, like, he can’t see my eyes, and I was like, ‘What the heck? See my eyes? I’m at the blueline, you’re gonna look at my eyes?’”
He would put the shield back on tomorrow if the league allowed it, and he points to football when he argues the case. “Nobody look in their eyes, right? Everybody look where’s the ball, nobody cares,” Ovechkin said of NFL players in tinted shields.
The laces never went anywhere. Ovechkin opens his 22nd NHL season in October still lacing them up in yellow.
