The film is based on real events and tells of the rise to fame of the Soviet hockey player Valeri Kharlamov and about the first match of the Summit Series USSR — Canada 1972.

Then the action is transferred to Moscow in 1967, where the young hockey player gets acquainted with the famous trainer Anatoly Tarasov, who sends Valeri along with his friend Alexander Gusev to the city of Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk Oblast, where they will play for the local "Zvezda" team.

At the same time intrigues are waged around Tarasov by the curator of hockey from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Eduard Balashov, whose son the coach once expelled from the team.

After the operation Valeri begins to exercise his leg in order to return to the ice as soon as possible since the first Summit Series in history between the USSR national team and the Canadian professionals is scheduled for 1972.

During the intermission, the Canadian coach tells his players that this is not a match, but a war, and instructed Bobby Clarke to deal with the "Number Seventeen".

The film received approval and high ratings from the overwhelming majority of Russian critics and publications about cinema: from 55 reviews on it 47 were positive and only 6 negative.

[18] Film critic Elena Stishova wrote that "Adrenaline is the key word for Nikolai Lebedev's picture" and notes that "The success of 'Legend' ... "strongly tests the spiritual deficiencies of the "silent majority".

There is a need for a hero who is "one of us", for the "life affirming" story, for the happy end not in a glossy Hollywood style - but in the society's sense: when everything is fair".