Washington Capitals Throwback Thursday: Richard Zednik
Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
The Washington Capitals had a very popular player in Richard Zednik. Let’s take a look back at his adventurous Washington Capitals career.
Before Tom Green ever told fans to “unleash the fury”, there was another hockey craze going around in the Washington area that drove fans to extremes for their love of Washington Capitals hockey. If you can remember back to Halloween night of the year 2000, you’ll remember a whole lot of peroxide bleach-blonde hair being unfurled and a cascade of hats raining down onto the ice.
Yes, it was “Zed Head” night at the old MCI Center for the game against the Detroit Red Wings and Richard Zednik, who was freshly reinstated from suspension after breaking Adam Foote‘s nose with a high stick. He rewarded fans with a triplet of goals and a 6-2 win. The Washington Capitals snapped a losing streak to the Red Wings that night that had loomed over Washington for ten long seasons.
Zednik had dyed his dark mop of hair blonde in the style of emerging pop-rapper Eminem going into the 2000 season. Washington Capitals fans flocked in droves to radio station DC101 when they had announced that they would be giving away tickets to the game and customized Zednik jerseys to the first bunch of people that showed up.
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My buddy Tom was one of the lucky few chosen. He had his hair dyed platinum blonde by the station staff and looked completely ridiculous. He got to sit in a section with 200 other raucous “Zed Heads” that night. He even got captured in video footage that was later used on the intro to ESPN’s Sportscenter for several months after. I’m still jealous.
Richard Zednik was drafted by the Washington Capitals in the tenth round of the 1994 NHL Entry Draft. He was projected as a long shot to ever make a pro roster. Putting up 243 Points for the Winter Hawks over his first two seasons in the WHL, however, certainly garnered him some attention. Zednik made his pro debut with the Washington Capitals in the 1995-1996 season.
In the several years that followed, Zednik became a regular fixture in the scoring column for the Washington Capitals, putting up 70 goals and 56 assists between 1996 and 2001. Despite bringing secondary scoring for several seasons, Zednik was traded to Montreal at the 2001 trade deadline with Jan Bulis in exchange for Dainius Zubrus and Trevor Linden.
Zednik spent four full seasons with the Habs before returning to the Washington Capitals in the summer of 2006. He put up another 18 points for the club before being traded away again in 2007, this time for good. Zednik eventually signed with the Florida Panthers later that year and spent two seasons with the team. Unfortunately, that is where he is most remembered.
On February 10, 2008, Zednik laced up for the Panthers’ match against the Buffalo Sabres as he would any other night. Midway through the third period, Zednik caught the skate blade of teammate Olli Jokinen as he fell and badly sliced the external carotid artery in his neck. The result was gruesome.
The game was immediately halted (although eventually resumed). Zednik was rushed by paramedics to a hospital in Buffalo. It was announced over the Public Address system that Zednik was in stable condition after undergoing immediate surgery. Fans in Buffalo gave him a lengthy standing ovation from HSBC Arena. The video of the incident is well-documented, but it’s quite graphic.
Zednik eventually made a full recovery and went on to play a season in the KHL for Lokomotiv Yaroslav. He was a finalist for the Bill Masterton trophy in 2008-2009.
During his career with the Capitals, Richard Zednik gave us some pretty incredible moments. In the Capitals ’98 playoff run to the Stanley Cup Finals, 22-year old Zednik found the back of the net seven times, tying the team lead with Peter Bondra, Joe Juneau and Sergei Gonchar.
In that year’s series-deciding Game 6 of the conference quarter-finals against the Boston Bruins, Zednik crashed the net and squeaked a huge goal past Byron Dafoe‘s five hole to help elevate the Caps into the second round. It had been his first game of the playoffs with Washington.
He also contributed back-to-back-to-back goals in the first three games of the five game series against the Ottawa Senators in the conference semi-finals that year. He nearly completed a hat trick in game 3 of the conference finals against the Buffalo Sabres and picked up the lone Capitals’ goal in game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals that year against the Red Wings. To say that he had a penchant for scoring timely goals would be a drastic understatement.
Zed played in 745 games over his NHL career and spent 289 of them with the Washington Capitals. It feels like it was a lot more. He’s been adored by fans all over the world, but especially in Montreal, Florida and D.C. He got a chance to represent Slovakia in both the 2006 and 2010 Olympics, but is currently retired from hockey. Maybe one day, we’ll see him return back to the District.
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