Posted by Scott Burnside
LAS VEGAS -- Quick takes from tonight's NHL awards show in Las Vegas:
• Loved Denis Leary's opening bit about the relationship between the game and the fans. Very cool.
• OK, is there anyone more Vegas than Jeremy Roenick? I thought there was some stuff on his collar, but then realized it was actual glitter. And where do you get a shirt that shiny? Still, better get a bigger teleprompter for J.R. if he is going to make this a post-hockey career.
Roenick actually acknowledged his foibles when he returned later in the broadcast to present a new fan favorite award.
"I'm usually pretty good behind a mic," Roenick insisted after mangling the intro to the award.
• Ooops. Who's that dude tagging along behind Maxime Talbot and Evgeni Malkin? Oh, yeah, it's Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma. The coach didn't quite get equal billing -- OK, any billing at all -- from "Entourage" actor Kevin Connolly when the Cup made its appearance at the Palms theatre. Oh, well; no one knew who Bylsma was when the season started, either.
• Kudos to the awards organizers for arranging to have Hall of Famer Igor Larionov and Vladimir Konstantinov present the Lester Pearson Award for the players' MVP, in many ways the most cherished of all the trophies because it's the one trophy players vote on themselves.
Konstantinov, the former Red Wings great, still uses a walker from a limousine accident that followed the Wings' 1997 Stanley Cup victory and left him permanently disabled.
"How are you?" Konstantinov asked the crowd.
Later, Larionov held out the envelope so Konstantinov could read the winner: Alex Ovechkin.
"Whoa, I'm nervous again," Ovechkin said before congratulating the Penguins for their Cup win and acknowledging co-nominees Pavel Datsyuk and Evgeni Malkin.
"Geno, Geno right?" Ovechkin said.
He then thanked his family and noted that this was a difficult season as he lost his grandfather. "This award, I give it to him and all my family," Ovechkin said.
The Washington superstar was tailor-made for Las Vegas. Or maybe Vegas was made for him. He joked during a media scrum that he had won $500 at the tables and had secreted the chips in a safe in his room. "Losing is not for me," joked Ovechkin, who made his way down the red carpet before the awards show flanked by two Vegas showgirls.
• Holy night of the Russian. Ovechkin won the Hart, Pearson and Maurice Richard trophies; Datsyuk won the Frank J. Selke and Lady Byng; and Evgeni Malkin took home the Art Ross for leading the league in scoring.
Throw in Larionov, Konstantinov and Sergei Fedorov, who was one of the presenters for the Hart Trophy (all the nominees were Russian), and it was a powerful reminder of the great hockey tradition in Russia and the country's impact on the NHL.
Datsyuk, who apologized for his "short" English when he was honored with the Lady Byng, delivered a great line as he took the stage to collect the Frank J. Selke Trophy for best defensive forward. "Now I'm more confident," he deadpanned.
• We loved Tim Thomas' acceptance speech after winning his first Vezina Trophy. Thomas, who toiled many years in the minors and overseas, said he wanted to thank his parents, who literally sold their wedding rings to help further Thomas' career when he was young.
They were at home watching Thomas' three children (ages 8, 5 and 3) and he teared up as he described how family and friends had never doubted him, especially his wife, "who has literally traveled around the world and never complained once."
He joked that he never worried about getting his name on a Vezina Trophy, but rather was more worried about getting his name on a roster.
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