Ovechkin leads Russia hockey team in Vancouver

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Alexander Ovechkin will lead world champions Russia in the 2010 Olympic ice hockey tournament after being named in a preliminary 23-man squad on Friday.

They will be seeking to end the country''s Olympic gold medal drought at the February 12 to 28 Vancouver Games.

The hockey superpower has not tasted success since winning the last of their eight Olympic titles as part of the Unified Team in 1992 in Albertville, France.

Russia coach Vyacheslav Bykov, who captained the 1992 Olympic team, also picked 40-year-old Sergei Fedorov, one of nine players from the domestic Continental Hockey League (KHL).

Fedorov returned home in 2009 after an 18-year NHL career, which included winning three Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings and capturing the Hart Trophy as the league MVP in 1994, signing a two-year contract with Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

KOVALEV MISSING

But there was no room in the squad for 39-year-old defenseman Sergei Zubov, who also came home in 2009 after a 17-year NHL career, or Alexei Kovalev, 36, captain of the 2006 Olympic team, where Russia finished a disappointing fourth.

San Jose Sharks'' Evgeni Nabokov, last year''s finalist for the Vezina trophy as the NHL''s top netminder, will likely be given the job of Russia''s number one in Vancouver, with Ilya Bryzgalov from the Phoenix Coyotes as his back-up.

The 24-year-old Ovechkin is hoping for a Russia-Canada final. "That''s the game everyone wants to see," he was quoted as saying by local media on Friday.

"No doubt, they (Canada) would be very motivated playing on home ice and also gunning for revenge," he said, referring to Russia beating their arch-rivals in the final of the last two world championships. "But we''ll be just as hungry as them."

However, Bykov said the squad named Friday was provisional and he could change players if their performance dropped.