"After going a few days without skating during his trip to New York for an NHL media tour, Alex Ovechkin asked Coach Bruce Boudreau if he could join the rookies' on-ice session on Sunday morning.

The two-time Hart Trophy winner waited his turn in drills, followed every instruction as if he were a rookie himself but that didn't keep some of the current prospects from watching Ovechkin.

"If I'm one of the young guys and I'm seeing Alex Ovechkin and I haven't skated with him — you see a man that's like that on the ice and it's a pretty big wow factor," said Boudreau, who told Ovechkin not to stay out on the ice for the entire first rookie practice. "I don't know what it's like today, but when I got a chance my first day to be on the same ice as Darryl Sittler or work a hockey school when I was still in junior and Bobby Orr was there I was pretty in awe.""