Henrik Lundqvist shows off his new Washington Capitals themed goalie pads.

This is going to be quite the system shock for long time fans of the New York Rangers and even for long time fans of the NHL as a whole this one is likely to feel a little odd. 

As all of those reading this will already know the Rangers made the difficult decision of buying out veteran Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist from his contract earlier in the offseason, eventually leading to Lundqvist signing with the Washington Capitals as an unrestricted free agent. That alone was a bitter pill for Lundqvist's fans to swallow, many had hoped that the Rangers star would play out his entire career in New York and would eventually retire as a Ranger, but this latest little tease from the man himself may be too much to bear.

In the early hours of Saturday morning Lundqvist took to social media to share a new photo with his fans, one that gives us a very clear preview of what his new pads will look like. Now to be clear this is not an image of the actual pads themselves but rather this appears to be the final cut of the design that went into these pads, pads that now appear to be in production for Lundqvist. 

The image published by Lundqvist today was accompanied by the following caption:

"The new look is set and in the works.."

And here is the image itself:

The design is frankly pretty generic in its nature but I also believe that these pads will look great once we get to see the actual design on a pair of actual pads. The main design feature here is simply the Washington Capitals logo which is split in half on each pad and accompanying that logo is the United States Capitol building which of course also makes sense given that the team is named the Capitols. The colors on the pads are the standard colors you would see on the team's logo and they are accompanied by 3 white stars on both the left and the right leg of Lundqvist's new pads. 

Do you like this new design? Is it too simple? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.