Ted Leonsis recalls the return trip from the NHL awards ceremony in June.

Alex Ovechkin had won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's MVP, the Lester B. Pearson Award as the most outstanding player chosen by the NHL Players' Association, the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top point-scorer and the Maurice Richard Trophy as the league's top goal-scorer. There was so much hardware, it nearly didn't fit on the plane.

As thrilled as Leonsis was that one of his team's players had been so decorated, Leonsis said to Ovechkin: "Do you want to be like Charles Barkley, a great player and a big personality who makes a lot of money and is loved by everybody? Or do you want to be like Michael Jordan and win championships?" Asked after the Capitals' Game 2 victory Monday night against the Penguins if he recalled Ovechkin's response, Leonsis said, "Alex knows that a place in history only comes with winning the Stanley Cup."

Ovechkin's real and more meaningful response to that question has come in recent playoff games, particularly his three-goal outburst that led the Washington Capitals to a 2-0 series lead over the Penguins. Sidney Crosby scored all three Penguins goals, but there was a bodaciousness about Ovechkin's performance that separates him from every player in the game, including the gifted Crosby.

You can't expect Ovechkin to explain it in his still-developing English, but there's something universally understandable about "give me the puck and get the hell out of my way." Or as Leonsis said late Monday night: "Sid is the best white wine the restaurant has to offer. Alex is a Denver Slammer, a shot of tequila in a glass of champagne. You whack the glass so that the fizz is coming up and you just shoot it."

Crosby is a wonderfully skilled player, technically superior. Ovechkin is a beast. He explodes, like a tornado. Ovechkin is scary. His shot is scary. There's an aggression about him, a barely controlled fury that Crosby, great as he is, doesn't have. Nobody else has it. Watching Ovechkin Monday night reminded me of watching Bobby Hull play for the Chicago Blackhawks when I was a kid.

He's the fastest, toughest guy with the biggest shot, the fewest teeth. Every great player wants to win. Ovechkin wants to beat you down.

Bruce Boudreau, Ovechkin's coach, is a connoisseur of sports. He watches them all, savors them all and is appreciative of greatness.

"All the great players, whether we're talking about Michael Jordan or John Elway or Brett Favre, all of them have this one quality, a 'to hell with you' attitude, one that says: 'I'm going through you or around you. It doesn't matter,' " Boudreau said. "And Alex has loads of it. He occasionally will come back to the bench after scoring a goal and he'll give you that Hulk pose, like he's Hulking up. He's so into it. It's a mode that all the great ones get into."

The Capitals certainly got it right in 2004 when they drafted Ovechkin over Evgeni Malkin, the regular-season scoring leader who has zero goals for the Penguins in the past five games of these playoffs, which means none so far in this series. The Capitals also got the better of it having Ovechkin instead of Crosby -- at least that's the bet here. I want the guy who's an SOB, who's got a charisma that can enable him to carry a team. Yeah, they both had three goals Monday night. But Crosby took five shots, scored three goals and had zero hits.

Ovechkin took 12 shots, scored three goals and recorded four hits. What isn't measurable statistically is how much Ovechkin wants to win.

"His mindset is to win the game. That's it," the coach said. "Some nights I might say to him, 'I've got to put you on this line tonight.' And he'll say, 'Whatever you gotta do.' He wants to play 60 minutes every night. But he never ever complains to me about not putting him on [the ice]. When your superstar is on your side like that ..."