You think of Ovi, you think of the Capitals. But What If…? Picture this. In an alternate timeline, Alex Ovechkin wears shades and flip-flops as a Florida Panther. Hard to imagine, right?

It’s not often that one of the greatest players in hockey history becomes the center of attention of a draft day mess that almost worked. But back in 2003, that’s exactly what happened when the Florida Panthers tried rewriting time itself to steal Alex Ovechkin a year early. What followed was a hilarious saga of loopholes, leap years, and league-level intervention.

Ovechkin went on to be drafted first overall in 2004 by the Capitals. The rest, as they say, is history. A pure hockey legend was born. But we’ll always have this story of a hilarious “what if” that proves hockey front offices can be just as wild as the games themselves. Here’s how the whole charade played out.

The year that had everything except Alex Ovechkin

The 2003 NHL Draft is often hailed as one of the best ever, producing 17 first-round All-Stars. But what it didn’t have was a no-brainer top pick. That year, the Florida Panthers held the No. 1 selection but felt confident enough to trade it to the Penguins, who used it on Marc-André Fleury.

Panthers GM Rick Dudley knew the talent pool was deep, so moving down to No. 3 still kept him in a good spot. But amid all this, a fantasy began to form inside the Panthers’ draft room.

One of Dudley’s staffers joked that they wished Ovechkin, the projected No. 1 pick, was just a few days older. Because this would’ve meant then that he would be eligible for the 2003 draft. Ovechkin was born on September 17, 1985. The cutoff for draft eligibility? September 15. Just two days too young.

Panthers owner Alan Cohen took that comment a little too seriously. His logic? The leap year loophole that could change the circumstance. If you count leap years, Ovi technically would be four days older. With that fuzzy math, Cohen made it a mission: they would try to draft Alex Ovechkin anyway.

Even though they played it safe with their No. 3 pick by selecting Nathan Horton, Cohen insisted that the team keep trying. Every round, every time, the Panthers just wouldn’t stop. Rick Dudley walked up during the second round and called Ovechkin’s name. Denied. Third round? Denied again. They tried again. And again. And again.

By the ninth round, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman himself had to step in and shut it down, handing the Panthers a written statement confirming that they could not draft Ovechkin. At last, the madness ended, and Florida picked Tanner Glass instead.

Though the Panthers never landed their fantasy pick, they did make history. Their Panthers’ attempt became the legacy of the weirdest draft ever. To this day, there’s official documentation that the Florida Panthers attempted to draft Alex Ovechkin in the ninth round of the 2003 NHL Draft.