from Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe,

Russians are welcome in Washington, a fact unrelated to the White House’s degree of hospitality.

Alex Ovechkin has made the District of Columbia his playground for a dozen seasons. He has had plenty of company.

Current Russian teammates are Evgeny Kuznetsov and Dmitry Orlov. Like Ovechkin, they are among the better players at their respective positions of playmaking center and two-way defenseman. Other Russians who performed well alongside Ovechkin for the Capitals include Alexander Semin, Semyon Varlamov, Sergei Fedorov, and Viktor Kozlov.

Other franchises have been wary of investing in Russian players because of the KHL’s appeal. There is risk in using draft capital on Russian prospects who would prefer to stay home.

But Washington’s decision to invest in Russians, started by former general manager George McPhee and extended by Brian MacLellan, has served the organization well. It is a similar story in Tampa Bay, where Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Vladislav Namestnikov are three of the Lightning’s chain-pullers.

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