..i’ll side with ovechkin over BB as the single most important ingredient. a superstar that works hard, loves the game, and has earned a spot as “one of the guys” is such a rare commoditiy. and it could be argued that ovechkin didn’t graduate from rookie/star-in-the-making into full-fledged superstar/MVP-candidate/leader-in-the-room until last year.

it also helps (i assume) that there are so many ruskies. and that so many of the players came up together with BB in hershey.