In a few short hours, the Capitals will face the Rangers in New York City to battle over who will advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. But we shouldn’t worry. Why? Because our team is made up of a bunch of super heroes.

A few weeks ago, at the same time that the Caps were starting their series against New York, Marvel’s “The Avengers” hit theaters, wowing audiences everywhere and shattering box office records. As a huge fan of the movie and its characters, I decided to make RMNB its own special homage to the film, but… with a bit of a twist.

The idea for this illustration started to form around last season, before I went to school. I got a request from my mother to draw a little sign in the same style as my Russian Machine signs for herself. But instead of Ovechkin, she wanted Nicklas Backstrom. So I turned Nicky into the god of thunder Thor, with influences from the Marvel Comics character.

This got me thinking about what kind of crossovers I could do with other Caps players. Last summer, I drew Alex Semin as Two-Face, and this season the sign I made for my mother was John Carlson as Captain America. When I found out about the Avengers movie, I immediately jumped at the chance to make an illustration crossing over Earth’s mightiest heroes with Washington’s mightiest heroes.

And thus the “Capsvengers” were assembled.

We have John Carlson and Nicklas Backstrom reprising their roles as Captain America and Thor. Mike Green is the Incredible Hulk, Brooks Laich is Iron Man, Matt Hendricks is Hawkeye, Karl Alzner is Black Widow, and Joel Ward is Nick Fury. For their outfits, I tried to find a balance between the comic character’s design and the Capitals’ uniform.

The layout of the illustration is based off the concept art for one of the earliest movie posters, but instead of having the team on the Helicraft, I put them on the rink instead. The drawing is 15” x 20,” and created using FW Acrylic inks and coloured pencils.

This illustration took several months of brainstorming, and many sleepless nights to paint (since it also happens to be Finals Week). It was a blast to make, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

CRASH THE NET.