Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk has already begun collecting awards this season by winning the Kharlamov Trophy which is given to the best Russian Player in the NHL. This is according to Yahoo Sports and the Detroit Free Press.
The award is voted on by Datsyuk’s peers and here is what some of those peers had to say…
It was the closest vote in quite some time. Fedor Tyutin of the Columbus Blue Jackets was the last one to cast his vote to ensure that Datsyuk would unseat Alex Ovechkin(notes), who won his fifth Kharlamov Trophy in a row last year.
“The level of play Pavel shows is consistently unbelievably high,” Tyutin said. “When you watch what he does on the ice you get a feeling that there is nothing that Pavel can’t do.”
Alexei Kovalev, who also voted for Datsyuk, said that “he is the most important player for Detroit. When Datsyuk comes back from injuries, the team looks very different.”
Kirkland Crawford of the Free Press writes that an interesting thing about this year’s vote was that Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals was one of the players to vote for Datsyuk. Semin of course is a teammate of Alexander Ovechkin.
The last Detroit player to win the Kharlamov Trophy was Sergei Fedorov back in 1993 which was the first year it was given out. Alexander Ovechkin had previously won the award the past five seasons.
Datsyuk will receive the award during a July ceremony in Moscow.
Source: Detroit Free Press, Yahoo Sports
