The effervescent Ovechkin

 By CHRIS ZELKOVICH , TheStar.com, Jan. 26, 2009, "Hey NHL: Ovechkin's the star of the show":

As he showed Saturday, the effervescent Ovechkin is the star the league should be hitching its wagon to, not Sidney Crosby.

Ovechkin is as outgoing an athlete as there is, but not in a Sean Avery way. He's out front without being in your face. Last night, every time he touched the puck there was a notable buzz in the crowd at Montreal's Bell Centre.

Crosby appears to be a nice young man who may even have more potential than Ovechkin on the ice. But as he demonstrated in a CBC interview Saturday, off the ice he's about as charismatic as a pylon.

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