When you think of the NHL All-Star game, you think about the best of the best the NHL has to offer. You think of those players that excel at the game and bring excitement to the arena on any given night.
So when I vote online for my favourite players that I believed have excelled this year, you can understand my feeling of pointlessness when I vote.
The lopsidedness of this year's All-Star game is almost discouraging.
I understand the fact the All-Star game is being held in Montreal but that is no excuse for more deserving players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to not be starting the game over players like Saku Koivu and Alexei Kovalev.
Do not get me wrong, both the latter players mentioned are excellent in there own right and deserve some consideration to be in the All-Star game but I honestly do not believe they should be in the starting lineup.
The closest any team has ever come to having started all there players in the All-Star game was in 1986 when Edmonton had all starting positions filled except for Ron Wilson taking one defensive spot.
- B/R Ticket Guide
But all the players in those slots were deserving of the honor: Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey and Grant Fuhr were all elite players at that time.
Montreal fans can say what they want but Mike Komisarek is in no way even close to being in the same class as Paul Coffey.
The only players that I think are deserving of there starting spots on the Eastern side are Alex Tanguay, Carey Price and maybe Andrei Markov.
Koivu, Kovalev and Komisarek have all had very good seasons so far, but this is the list of players that they are beating:
Alexander Ovechkin
Alexander Semin
Sidney Crosby
Evgeni Malkin
Marc Savard
Thomas Vanek
Zdeno Chara
Mike Green
Wade Reddon
That is quite a class of players to be sitting on the bench for the opening ceremonies.
The point that I am trying to get at is at the end of the day, the NHL are the ones that pay for it.
Sure, the NHL will of course have a successful All-Star game in Montreal, but how will the future of the All-Star game be successful if all they see is a bunch of players from the same team starting the game?
It cheats both the fans and the more deserving players from a spot amongst the NHL's elite.
Finally on a side note, I think that out of all the players that deserve to go to the All-Star game, two deserve it the most. Shea Weber and Devin Setoguchi have been lights out this season and because of where they play, they do not receive the fan-fare and votes that they deserve.
These two players are playing the best hockey of there careers and both deserve a spot in the All-Star game.
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about 1 month ago
A solid argument, Shane. As a Habs fan, I can't disagree with you although I would argue Saku Koivu has been having a great year, one of the few bright spots on the Habs and worthy, I believe, of a start in the all-star game.
about 1 month ago
Dont hate me habs fans but I believe the only guy deserving a start from the habs is markov on the point. koivu and kovalev have a combined point total of 32 whereas malkin himself has 31. Guys like Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Semin, Gagne, Savard, Parise, Richards, Heatley, Alfreddsonn, Zherdev, etc, are all deserving this year and coincidentally have more points than any 3 of the hab forwards. Sure those habs are good players but there are much better players out there in the league and so lets not taint this all-star game even though it may be too little too late.
about 1 month ago
I'm going to have to disagree with you guys. All of the Canadiens listed are great players, except for maybe Komisarek, who is mediocre. Price is doing an amazing job for such a young goalie, and I stress young. Koivu and Kovalev are having a great season and so is Tanguay. Because of all the hype of the 100th season, what do you expect? Montreal has hundreds of thousands of fans, I believe more than any other team in the NHL and they want to see their players go to the all-star game in their city, can you blame them? If you guys want Malkin and Crosby in the starting line-up then vote and vote often just like Habs fans are doing. I wish everyone would stop critizising the NHL for the all-star ballot because if the fan vote option was taken away, you can bet your bottom dollar fans would be complaining about that.
And, they even took AWAY votes from all the habs players, so there doesn't seem to be pleasing any of the people who are not happy about this. If you ask me, this is a dumb topic to be upset about, far worse things are happening in the world than this.
from about 1 month ago
I disagree on this being a dumb topic. Some players cherish the fact that they are chosen as all-star players and there are a lot more players that are worthy of starting the all-star game then all the habs players that are mentioned. Well maybe not Markov but the rest yeah I am dead on the nose.
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