The camp will be held Aug. 23-24 in Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Among those invited to the camp are 13 who played on the 2010 Olympic team that lost in the quarterfinals to Canada. Ovechkin had two goals and two assists in four games at the Games in Vancouver.
Also returning from that team are goalies Evgeni Nabokov (New York Islanders and Semyon Varlamov (Colorado Avalanche); defensemen Sergei Gonchar (Dallas Stars), Andrei Markov (Montreal Canadiens), Ilya Nikulin (Ak Bars Kazan); Fedor Tyutin (Columbus Blue Jackets) and Anton Volchenkov (New Jersey Devils); and forwards Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit Red Wings); Ilya Kovalchuk (SKA St. Petersburg), Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins), Alexander Radulov (CSKA) and Alexander Semin (Carolina Hurricanes).
One player from 2010 whose name is glaring by its absence is that of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, who had his contract bought out by the Philadelphia Flyers and has yet to sign with a new team. In two games in 2010, Bryzgalov went 0-1 with a 1.78 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.
Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets will join Nabokov and Varlamov at the camp. They’ll be joined by Kontinental Hockey League goalies Konstantin Barulin of Ak Bars Kazan and Vasily Koschechkin of Severstal Cherepovets.
The Russian team will be coached by Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, who led his country to gold at the 2012 IIHF World Championships.
Rules for Blog Commenting
Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.
Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.