Your all-star starters: It's all Pens, Habs, 'Hawks and Ducks

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 1:43 PM CST Comment 22 comments

Montreal Canadiens’ legend and 13-time NHL All-Star Jean Beliveau, will help kick-off this year’s All-Star celebrations by announcing the fan-voted starting line-ups for the Eastern and Western Conference All-Star teams.

Beliveau, one of the greatest players ever to play the game, will make the announcement tomorrow, Saturday, January 3 at 1:30 p.m. ET exclusively on NHL.com.

>> team release

Voting closes tonight at 9 p.m., six and a half hours from now, so we've got a pretty good idea already of who the 12 starters are going to be. Here's the leaders of the fan voting as of 2:30 p.m.:

Western Conference

Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Ryan Getzlaf have an insurmountable lead at forward, and will be the three starters. Brian Campbell will be one of the defencemen and Scott Niedermayer is about 11,000 votes ahead of third-place Chris Pronger. Jean-Sebastien Giguere will be the goaltender.

Three 'Hawks, three Ducks.

Eastern Conference

No matter what happens, it's all Penguins and Habs in the East.

The two forwards guaranteed to be in are Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, who are 1-2 in NHL scoring and fine choices. The third forward will be a member of the Canadiens, likely Alexei Kovalev, who has a 20,000-vote lead over Saku Koivu in fourth. On defence, two Habs lead: Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek. Sergei Gonchar is 6,000 votes behind Komisarek but will not play in the game given he won't return to the ice until March. Carey Price and Marc-Andre Fleury are within a few hundred votes of each other for the starting goaltender's spot.

No matter what, only four teams will be represented in the 12 starter's spots, which is ridiculous. Online fan voting has been made even more of a sham this season due to the ability to text a vote for an entire team of potential starters, something that has helped the Penguins erase what looked like a Montreal sweep early on.

Your likely starters:

Kane, Chicago
Toews, Chicago
Getzlaf, Anaheim
Campbell, Chicago
Niedermayer or Pronger, Anaheim
Giguere, Anaheim

Crosby, Pittsburgh
Malkin, Pittsburgh
Kovalev, Montreal
Markov, Montreal
Komisarek or Gonchar, Montreal/Pittsburgh
Price or Fleury, Montreal/Pittsburgh

Sure looks pretty inclusive.

There are 42 total roster spots on NHL all-star teams, and only 30 left after fan voting picks the 12 starters. With only four teams represented, the remaining 26 will have to fight over the 30 open spots, and it's likely a lot of deserving players get left out of the game.

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Comments

I don’t mean to be snarky or anything, but I wonder how many hockey fans really watch the all-star game? I’m sure it must be fun if you are actually present live, but if I want to see a particular player actually play hockey at full speed in a real game, I can easily locate him online. I haven’t watched an all-star game in more years than I can count because I think of it as a slow-speed schmooze-fest with no real resemblance to game action – and it provides a nice break for me to ignore hockey for a few days in the middle of the season.

When I have voted, I’ve never voted for players on my favorite teams, but players on rivals – in the hopes that the players I liked had a chance to rest from their bumps and bruises and someone else could get to go to the pointless exhibition.

"A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with." -- Tennessee Williams

by Baroque on Jan 2, 2009 2:09 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

As much as I abhor Football's Pro Bowl Game

the one thing they get right is doing away with “every team must be represented” …I love the Blues, but they don’t have a single player who should be anywhere close to Montreal if it means that a much more deserving player gets left off…and hockey needs it’s best and it’s brightest at this showcase, not lesser skilled players from crappy teams.

by tbell61 on Jan 2, 2009 2:12 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

How do you spell “joke” again? N-H-L

What a farce.

Gross Misconduct with Hockey Joe

by HockeyJoe on Jan 2, 2009 2:24 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

It’s not like Gonchar will be starting anyway…

Follow the Penguins on SBN @ Pensburgh.com

by FrankD on Jan 2, 2009 2:34 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I heard

Iginla, Thornton and Datsyuk were all busy that night anyway…

I've been looking at the sky

by Back In Black on Jan 2, 2009 2:40 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I’m surprised anyone cares. I get it that bloggers and mainstream media love to rip the NHL at every opportunity, but it’s the frickin’ All Star game! It’s utterly meaningless.

I was at the festivities in Atlanta last year, and I can’t even tell you who “won”.

by cferneyh on Jan 2, 2009 2:43 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Our voting robots can beat up your voting robots

Or something like that. Good work, Anaheim programmers.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 2, 2009 2:53 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Gonchar didn’t meet the minimum games played requirement, so it’ll be Komisarek that starts. Looks like Fleury got the 20 game requirement out of the way recently (at 21 games) so that’s the race to watch.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Jan 2, 2009 3:04 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I don’t know that they’ll necessarily replace a player who doesn’t meet the minimum games requirement with whoever’s next on the list. Unless you’ve seen that stipulated somewhere?

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 3:15 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Well, it only makes sense that they’d take him out of the running. I dunno, maybe that spot becomes a coach’s selection, but if you know before the game that he’s not even close to playing, might as well pull him out immediately in favour of the next fan favourite.

by Doogie2K on Jan 2, 2009 3:51 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

My guess is it would simply be another open selection for the league to fill. That’s generally what happens with injury replacements.

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 4:48 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

It’s a joke and a sham, all mixed into one event.

I haven’t watched the game in years, and even with my team of choice so well represented, due in large part to text message voting, I still won’t watch it. And no, I didn’t help make it happen.

Pittsburgh Black And Gold -- So new, it still smells like paint!

by JustinM on Jan 2, 2009 3:25 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Talk about an idea back-firing....

It would be hard to imagin a way they could have taken a slightly irellevant event and have made it any more ittellevant than the way fan voting was habled this year…..Crosby & Malkin are legitimate starters – everyone else is open to debat and I’m a rabid Capitals fan….though it’s sure that either Toews or Kane would have made it – Giguire as the starting Western Conference Goaltender is the biggest farce of them all, and Gonchar as a starting Defenseman for the East – give me a break the guy has not played at all this season. How about we vote in Bobby Orr, they’ve played the same number of games so far this season, the difference is Orr isn’t currently on IR and could actually attend. -- LOL

by markbona-capsfan99 on Jan 2, 2009 3:51 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I voted Gretzky and Kurri as much as I could.

Doesn’t look like I made much of a dent though.

Gross Misconduct with Hockey Joe

by HockeyJoe on Jan 2, 2009 3:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Giguere as the starting Western Conference Goaltender is the biggest farce of them all

I suppose I’ll ask why you don’t think he’s an all-star. He’s the only goalie listed there who’s won a Stanley Cup or a Conn Smythe, and plenty of all-stars have been selected on past accomplishments, haven’t they?

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 2, 2009 4:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Sure, there’s only four teams in the starting lineup (which criminally excludes Nick Lidstrom), but really, name one of those twelve who absolutely doesn’t deserve to be at the game — not in the starting lineup, because who cares, but at the game. The only person who might stand out is Komisarek, and he’s still been pretty solid for Montreal when he’s played this year.

Besides, it’s not like you can’t still fit all of Boyle, Lidstrom, Souray, and Weber (to name four deserving attendees at random) onto the Western D just because Campbell and Niedermeyer are there.

by Doogie2K on Jan 2, 2009 3:54 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Fleury has had a poor year and missed time due to injury. Giguere has been average, and routinely outplayed by Hiller this season. Kovalev has nine goals.

There are a ton of choices who should be there ahead of these guys.

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 4:54 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

There are a ton of choices who should be there ahead of these guys.

As could be said every year. I guess the NHL will just have to continue that policy of having the game not count for anything.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Jan 2, 2009 5:22 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Heh, as long as it’s ridiculous, I’ll keep calling it that.

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 5:37 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

That’s fair, but at the same time, the League’s choices can be put under the same microscope. Remember Cheechoo going the year after his 56-goal campaign, which was not so hot?

by Doogie2K on Jan 2, 2009 7:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I’m all for blasting those picks, too. It’s not rocket science putting these rosters together.

by James Mirtle on Jan 2, 2009 8:34 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I’d like to think that Carter AND Gagne get in, but I’m sure that’s a pipe dream…

The Flyer Frequent

by Ben Rothenberg on Jan 3, 2009 2:58 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

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