We don’t know whether this will be Alex Ovechkin’s final season as a Washington Capital or not, but there’s never a bad time to reflect back on two decades of being treated to this amazing talent. So each game day throughout the 2025-26 season, we’re going to be picking an Ovechkin moment to remember against that day’s opponent as we look back at an incredible career.
Florida Tries to Game the System – Summer 2003
Up until now, all of the moments and milestones we’ve looked back on have been things that happened with Alex Ovechkin as a member of the Washington Capitals (and, spoiler alert, all of the ones after this will be, as well). But today, we’re reflecting back on something that almost happened: the Florida Panthers drafting Alex Ovechkin in 2003.
Back in the summer of 2003, Alan Cohen, owner of the Panthers at the time, overheard some of the team’s staff bemoaning the fact that Russian phenom Alex Ovechkin couldn’t be drafted that year instead of in 2004. See, the cutoff for draft-eligible players was anyone who would be 18 by September 15, 1985; Ovechkin was born just two days later, meaning he’d have to wait until the following summer.
The Panthers were the keepers of the 2003 first-overall pick, though, and Cohen was intrigued by the possibility of pulling off something big. As he reviewed the CBA, he felt there was a lack of clarity on what constituted a year – it didn’t specify “tropical” years, which don’t include leap years. And if you don’t include leap years, well, Alex Ovechkin would have turned 18 four days earlier and been eligible for the draft.
Love a good loophole!
Anyway, Cohen brought the idea to his GM, Rick Dudley, and asked him to present it to the league. So he did. Multiple times. And each time, the NHL told him it was a no-go. Florida traded their #1 pick to the Penguins (which became Marc-Andre Fleury) and kept pressing, to the point that the league was so afraid they’d try to pick Ovechkin at their new #3 spot that they threatened them with sanctions that could include losing the pick altogether.
Cohen wouldn’t let it go, though, and had Dudley try again. And again. And again. Each time they were turned down by the league, until they finally tried to actually select Ovechkin with their final pick in the ninth round…only to have their microphone turned off and get a firm admonishment from the league.
They eventually used that final pick to select Tanner Glass, who would go on to play 527 games in the NHL. But (understatement of the year alert) he was no Ovechkin.
20 years after the infamous draft, Dudley looked back on the moment with some fondness:
“Our entire staff knew what was going on,” Dudley says. “At the end of the day, I felt a little silly because it was me that had to walk up there and keep doing it, but if you think about it, it was pretty clever.”
[…]
“I knew it wasn’t going to work,” Dudley says, “because if Jim Gregory looks you in the eye and says, ‘It ain’t happening, Rick,’ if Colie Campbell looks you in the eye and says, ‘It ain’t happening, Rick,’ and if Gary Bettman looks you in the eye and says, ‘It ain’t happening, Rick,’ you pretty well know it’s not happening.
[…]
“Let’s be honest, it was a clever thing by Alan,” Dudley says, laughing. “Alan was right. He had been on the earth enough days to be eligible for the draft. If the reverse had happened and the agent went to the league months earlier and petitioned to make Ovi draft-eligible, it would have been interesting to see what the league would have decided, if they would have made him draft-eligible and what would have happened next.”
Alex Ovechkin a Panther? The story behind the legendary 2003 NHL Draft plot to pick Ovi a year early – The Athletic, 6/22/23 ($)
Crazy to think what might have been – and we can all be thankful that it never was.