Mike Chen's Hockey Blog
Bizarro All-Stars
by Mike Chen on 01/07/09 at 12:34 PM ET
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Patrick Marleau, Daniel Sedin, Mikku Koivu, Marian Hossa, and Henrik Zetterberg vs. Keith Tkachuk, Mike Modano, and Milan Hejduk. The first five guys are having some of the best seasons in the NHL. The last three guys are not, but they’re apparently All-Stars.
I know the league has to cater to TV networks and sponsors, but doesn’t it seem strange that those last three guys made the Western Conference All-Stars? I mean, Modano is fourth on his team in scoring, Tkachuk’s 27 points aren’t bad but certainly not great, and Hejduk isn’t much better at 29 points. From their own teams, Brad Richards, Brad Boyes, and Paul Stastny (injured) would have easily made better picks. From a league perspective, each of the guys I listed above is far, far more deserving.
Picking guys with name value is understandable but when there are a bunch of guys who are deserving, it seems like the criteria has changed from “Have an outstanding season” to “Have a decent season as an elder statesman on the downside of his career.”
All-Star Games are generally pretty useless to bitch about, so I’m not going to go much further with this. I think we all know that as great of players as Tkachuk, Modano, and Hejduk are, they don’t deserve to be there. In fact, I’m betting that if you asked them, they’d probably say the same thing (that’s why hockey players are such great stand-up guys).
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Tags: All-Star+Game,
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