Ovechkin's Ottawa appearance met by protest over support for Putin

Ottawa Senators are back in action tonight against the Washington Capitals. Looming over the game, Alexander Ovechkin. The Russian superstar is lacing up in Ottawa, and not everyone is happy to see him here. Joining us live from the Canadian Tire Centre to fill us in is David Fraser. David, what can you tell us? Nobody has scored more goals in NHL history than Alex Ovechkin. Now entering his final NHL season, the Russian superstar is facing some scrutiny. He's got criticism for his ongoing support of Vladimir... Putin, who Ovechkin has appeared in commercials with and continuously promoted the leader. At tonight's game, you can see a small group of Ukrainian Canadians planning to be in and outside the rink, letting the grade eight know how they feel about his continued support for Putin. I do have a serious issue, and my idea is people should be aware of him participating here. And instead of supporting... Criminal, I mean, activity of the wrongdoing for the criminal activities of destruction. Canadians should be aware and maybe not support stuff like that. Now, this protest and this game comes on the heels of Russia being allowed back into some international sporting competitions, including hockey. That's a move that Prime Minister Mark Carney says won't happen on Canadian soil. He said that he will not allow Russians under that flag to play hockey here. And this is something that we asked Ovechkin about earlier today. How I say, it's his... His thoughts, his decisions, and I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'm pretty sure if you're going to ask the fans, the fans want to see best players out there and the fans want to see young generation players who are going to be future stars, future NHLers and, you know, it's not up to us. Despite a little bit of weather tonight, the protesters here not being deterred and outside any controversy about tonight's game, there's a hockey game being played and some good news on that front for the Ottawa Senators' starting goaltender, Linus Ullmark, expected to be back on the roster and in the lineup soon. He's been injured for the last couple of weeks, but expected to be playing in the next couple of days for the Sens again. Thank you for this. David David Fraser reporting live for us tonight.