By Harry Hawkings, Special to For The Win
Alex Ovechkin had a great year. The Washington Capitals’ captain led the NHL with 32 goals, and earned the Hart Memorial Trophy, given to the NHL’s most valuable player. It was his third MVP award.
On Tuesday, he added two more awards to his mantle: first team All-Star at right wing and second team All-Star at left wing, as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.
Ovechkin was a left wing for the first seven years of his NHL career, and posted outstanding numbers for the first five of those seasons before dipping to very good in his sixth and simply good in his seventh. This year, after a slow start, new Capitals coach Adam Oates shifted Ovechkin to right wing to try and bring back “the old Ovechkin.”
By mid-season, Ovechkin was on an incredible hot streak, and just about every Washington columnist and beat writer wrote a story on the position switch. So did a lot of national hockey columnists. It was a big news story, and arguably THE top news story, in the NHL this year after the lockout ended.
So how did it happen that almost a quarter of the voting members of the PHWA (45 of just under 180) gave Ovechkin first-place votes at a position he played in only four games this season? Especially when USA TODAY Sports’ Kevin Allen, the president of the PHWA, sent out an email informing voting members that Ovechkin was now a right wing?
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