On January 3rd, the NHL released its starting all-star lineups for the 2009 All-Star game. The results didn’t shock anyone, but they did prove that there must be a better way to choose the all-star teams. It is clear that we can no longer trust the fans. The West is ok, not good, just ok, but the East is atrocious. They got Crosby and Malkin right and you can make arguments for Price and Markov, although Price is clearly the 4th best goalie in the East, but Mike Komisarek and Alexei Kovalev? Really?
In 26 games, Komisarek has 5 points and is a plus 5. Not exactly the second coming of Bobby Orr, more like a bad version of Kjell Samuelson. I know, offense isn’t everything for a defenseman, but let’s remember a much better and more deserving defenseman in Mike Green was left off the team. In fact, I can think of about 25 defensemen off the top of my head that are more deserving
Kovalev had a resurgence last season, but is now significantly off of his pace from last year. He has scored just 11 goals and has 21 assists in 42 games. His total points places him 69th in the league. Some will point to his plus 11, but that still doesn’t even crack the top 50. The fact that Kovalev is starting and Elias, Kessel, Gagne, Mike Richards, St. Louis and other much more deserving candidates shows how broken the system really is.
It is clear the NHL needs a better system. The NHL doesn’t need to take the vote from the fans, but it needs some kind of checks and balances. The first mistake I would fix is getting rid of full team cell phone voting. I can’t speak for every team, but the Pens have a number the fan can text and each Penguin will get a vote. That is pitiful. The All-Star game should showcase the best talent, not the players whose fans have the most time on their hands.
There are a few players worth mentioning this week, but the most important is Brian Elliot. Yahoo! beat me to the punch, but I caught drift of this Wednesday or Thursday of last week. I made sure to watch his first start and he certainly impressed me. He is 10-1-1 in his last 12 in the minors and started his NHL career stopping 25 of 27 shots. He is a rookie goalie playing on a bad team, but the Sens already said they will give him every opportunity to win the starting job. Keep an eye on Elliot and be ready to pull the trigger if he continues to impress. A cheap and solid 4th starting goalie could make the difference down the line.
Surprisingly, Colorado hasn’t fallen off the face of the Earth with the loss of Stastny and Sakic and much of their success can be attributed to Wojtek Wolski, Milan Hejduk, and Ryan Smyth. I predicted nobody would step up, but all three have. They are playing together on the same line and playing really well. Chances are Hejduk is gone, but Smyth is surprisingly very available and Wolski is most likely available in your league. I recommend all three for the short term. When Stastny returns in the next couple of weeks, someone will be the odd man out. My money is on simply replacing Wolski with Stastny but separating the four into two lines is possible as well. The former is much better than the latter when looking at Hejduk’s and Smyth’s long term success.
The Nashville goalie situation remains entrenched in a heated battle, but it shouldn’t be. After being very inconsistent early one, Pekka Rinne has begun to string together some solid starts and is playing like the true number one goalie. In five January starts, Rinne has a 1.67 GAA and a 94% save percentage to go along with three wins. His losses were both 2-1 losses. Rinne has shown flashes of brilliance in December, but he is finally stringing together consecutive games of really solid goaltending. Don’t wait and see on Rinne or you will lose out. Instead, pick him up and start him until you see signs of danger.
For the record, I am not jumping on the Nikita Filatov bandwagon. Sure, he looked awesome in the World Junior Championships and posted a hat trick on Saturday, but he is only 18 years old and is very small and raw. He will certainly have games that dazzle you, but he will also throw up plenty of disappointing performances. Filatov has a bright fantasy future, but only deep keeper league owners should really take notice.
As always, feel free to leave a question or comment. By the way, anyone who can name all the players in the picture above gets a big pat on the back. I couldn’t help but use it. Until next week, The Puck Stops Here.
Picture courtesy of www.normandinart.com.
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