Ovie's Got Hart... Again!

Congrats to Alex Ovechkin for winning the Hart trophy (and the Pearson) for the second straight year. I can't express how impressive that is. After so many years of wishing that a Capital would be one of the best players in the league, I will never take Ovie for granted. Sure, we want the big prize. Ovechkin said as much during his acceptance speech for the Hart. He said next year, he intends to bring home the Cup. Now many idiots in the media will come out and say Ovie guaranteed the Cup for the Caps, but we all know it's just Alex not shying away from saying what is important to him. Those individual trophies are nice and I'm sure he's quite happy to win them, but he wants the Cup, especially after his good buddy/enemy/buddy Malkin has one now. Which brings me to those Penguins. Congrats to them. They were great. They beat the Red Wings just like they beat the Caps; by winning 4 out of 5, including a Game 7 on the road. As much as it sickens me to have watched them win it, you have to give them credit. Before looking at the offseason so far, I just wanted to congratulate Mike Green on the Norris nomination. Anyone who has followed that award knows that you never win it on the first try. It was quite a shock to see Chara win it, but he had a great season as did the Bruins. Though I would argue with anyone that Nicklas Lidstrom is still the best defenseman in the league and he should have been nominated for the Hart instead of Pavel Datsyuk. Lidstrom is truly the MVP of that team. Now back to the Caps and the offseason so far. The only signing has been Quintin Laing, which is a great depth signing. Laing had a good season in Hershey and is a hard worker who will do anything to block a shot or help the team. He's a great guy to have in the organization. The Sergei Fedorov situation will come down to money plain and simple. The Caps have to determine how important they think Feds is to this team. If they can somehow get rid of Michael Nylander's contract, I think they can keep him with no problem, but if not, I have a feeling Fedorov will be headed to Russia. He has that contract with the KHL on the table and we'll just see if the Caps have enough to entice him to stay. I think they should definitely re-sign him if they can because center is the position where we need the most improvement, but I trust George McPhee and if we lose Feds, I'm sure they will find somebody decent to replace him. Congrats as well to the Hershey Bears for winning the Calder Cup once again. The future Caps are learning again what it takes to win a championship and that can only help in our plans to win in D.C.. There should be a number of Bears players who will have a chance to make the Caps roster this upcoming season and that is great for the franchise. I'm very excited for the continued influx of young players, especially defensemen. This organization should be good for a long time to come. Now we get ready for the draft and July 1. I know the Caps will be busy looking to make some trades and a few free agent signings, but don't expect a big time signing as this team is set in it's building process to have great teams and a lot of trade bait to get even better. I'm excited for the rest of this offseason. It's been a wild 18 months since this team got good and we have a long way to go so we can be the one's lifting the Cup instead of those Penguin jerks!