LAS VEGAS — He is Alex The Great — again.
Capitals star forward Alex Ovechkin pulled off the kind of repeat the Red Wings dreamed about by snagging the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP for the second consecutive year Thursday night.
Ovechkin also walked off with the NHL Players’ Association’s Lester B. Pearson Award, given to the most outstanding player in voting by fellow players.
“What a life,” Ovechkin said after winning the Pearson for his first jackpot at the Palms Casino Resort.
It made no difference that the awards ceremony was moved to Sin City from Toronto to make it a more glitzy spectacle. Ovechkin, the leading goal scorer the past two seasons, stood out above the rest.
Ovechkin led the league with 56 goals and was second with 110 points. Voters for the Hart Trophy overwhelmingly picked Ovechkin over Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk, awarding him 115 of 131 first-place votes to make him the first back-to- back Hart winner since Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek in 1997 and 1998.
“It’s important for me. What I’m doing on the ice, it’s working and I don’t want to stop,” Ovechkin said. “Right now, I’m the best, but next year everyone will be better.”
Other award winners were: Datsyuk (Selke Trophy and Lady Byng), Tim Thomas (Vezina Trophy), Zdeno Chara (Norris Trophy), Claude Julien (Jack Adams Award) and Steve Mason (Calder Trophy).
Footnotes.
The Penguins signed defenseman Alex Goligoski to a three-year, $5.5 million contract.
• Blackhawks assistant general manager Rick Dudley has resigned after three years in that position.
The Associated Press
