Ovechkin calls Capitals teammates back to ice to shake hands with retiring Fleury

It takes a legend to know a legend.

Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin called his teammates back on to the ice after a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday to pay their respects to retiring goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Ovechkin, who has been involved in his own historic pursuit of Wayne Gretzky's NHL career goals record, made sure his team congratulated Fleury on calling it a career at the conclusion of this season.

"Yeah, it’s amazing," said Wild coach John Hynes. "I think he deserves all the accolades that he’s gotten. He continues to play well. I think he’s been a great teammate everywhere that he’s been. He’s been a tremendous competitor to compete against. And obviously the quality of a human being that he is, all those things combined, I think we’re witnessing in part of a Hall of Fame player, a Hall of Fame person. That’s earned the respect - not only as a player but I think as a competitor. Which is probably the best compliment you can get."

Fleury is in his 21st NHL season and fourth with the Wild and currently sits at second among goalies in games played (1,048), wins (573) and is tied for eighth most shutouts (76) in history.

The three-time Stanley Cup champion and Ovechkin were on opposite sides of one of the League's great rivalries during Fleury's 13 seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“Yeah, that’s amazing. That relationship is a little bit of a hate/love but it’s one of those where you just tip your cap to the other guy and the battles that you saw in Pittsburgh and Capitals," said Wild forward Marcus Foligno "I got to watch it before I came into this League, and it was special. That was a really good sign of respect by those guys. I think that was more from the battles they had with Flower over those years.”

Ovechkin has scored more of his goals against Fleury than any other goaltender (28 goals in 47 games), which says more about how often the two have played against each other than anything else, but Fleury did not play on Thursday night, giving way to his Wild counterpart Filip Gustavsson.

"Every team we go to, you see the signs, everyone loves him," Gustavsson said. "I think no one really would say anything bad about him or everyone probably sees how he’s a really good human being, and very respected. It's great to see him get the handshake like that."

But that didn't matter at the final horn. All that mattered was giving the Flower his flowers.

- NHL.com independent correspondent Jessi Pierce contributed to this report.