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Tonight is the NHL's annual awards show. Alexander Ovechkin, who has won both of the NHL's scoring titles, is nominated for both of the league's most valuable player awards as well.
Two other Capitals could be honored tonight. Bruce Boudreau is up for Coach of the Year, and has a slim chance. Nicklas Backstrom is nominated for Rookie of the Year, but the honor is predicted to fall upon Chicago's Patrick Kane.
Ovechkin's fellow nominees for both of the MVP awards are Pittsburgh's Evgenei Malkin and Calgary's Jarome Iginla. Malkin can hardly be said to be the most valuable player on a team with reigning MVP Sidney Crosby. While Iginla may be as important to the Flames as Ovechkin is to the Caps, Ovechkin scored so much this year that even the Calgary Herald picks Ovechkin as MVP.
The Capitals plan to celebrate in style with free ice skating at Ballston tomorrow, regardless of the outcome. Mayor Fenty also wants to get in on the action. The mayor will present Ovechkin with a key to the city tomorrow afternoon, but only if he wins. Tough town.
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Malkin can hardly be said to be the most valuable player on a team with reigning MVP Sidney Crosby
You mean the same Crosby who missed 1/4 of the season, including 6 weeks of the stretch drive, with a high ankle sprain?
6 points separated Malkin and Ovechkin -- one lead his team to the finals and the other a round one exit. I'd vote for Ovechkin, but not by much.
It's Evgeni, not Evgenei.
Though Malkin had a less than stellar run in the Stanley Cup finals, his amazing season (and the talents of Ty Conklin, backup goaltender for the similarly injured Marc-Andre Fleury) were the catalysts for getting the Penguins into playoff position.
A.O. will win because he's still really the only thing the Capitals have going, except for maybe Huet (if they don't lose him to free agency).
Let's go Pens!
Whatever. Ovie gets all the press, but Boudreau has put together quite the ensemble, as evidenced by the stellar contributions from Backstrom and Semin that got us into that Game 7 that we almost won, even when Ovechkin had hit an unfortunately-timed slump.
Yes, Malkin stepped up during Crosby's absence - but where was he before that?
Ovechkin has had an amazing season - not only leading in goals and points, but being a major part of the team's turnaround. He's not the only part of that (Boudreau, Huet, Backstrom, and Mike Green also helped) but let's remember that the Caps were in last place in Thanksgiving, and came through to win the Division in a fantastic end-of-season run.
Bruce should be coach of the year hands down. He ressurected the team in half a season, no one has ever gon worst to first in that short amount of time. If people don't recognize that, they're retards.
Evgeni, Yevgenei it's a russian name, so all spellings in phoenician scripts are compromises. In Pittsburgh they spell it "Gino." Thanks for keeping me honest.
crymeanicerink,
Yeah -- and Gino still led the Pens in goals and points through three dominant playoff rounds (yes -- that's three times as many as Ovechkin's one) before playing injured through finals.