The Mirtle All-Stars – From The Rink:
Forget online voting and Mike Komisarek in your starting lineup: Here are my 42 choices as the best players so far this season. Unlike the NHL’s list, I won’t make an effort to include all 30 NHL teams, so some top clubs have a lot of representation.
I agree with Mirtle almost to a person. That should scare James….
I would have placed Boyle instead of Vlasic; that’s not because I don’t think Vlasic isn’t worthy, it’s that I think the three big D on San Jose (Vlasic, Boyle, Blake) all deserve at least honorable mentions, and honestly, I think Boyle has been the most consistent and game-changing. Lost in all of this is Christian Erhoff, who’s having one hell of a year, but isn’t throwing the offensive numbers, and Doug Murray, who’s taken up the “none shall pass” role that allows the other D to activate. It’s a hell of a crew. But if I can only choose one to send to Montreal, I’d honestly send Boyle. But it’s a tough call.
It’d be nice to see Devin Setoguchi get some recognition, but it’ll come. Just not this year. But I can’t really argue with any of the choices James made, and the only one the NHL made that irritates me is Luongo; not because I think Nabokov deserves it instead (he doesn’t), but because Luongo just plain old doesn’t. oh well.
I’ve stayed out of the whining about the All-Star balloting and all of that — too many people taking it way too seriously, mostly, it seems, because they need something to fill time and space over ,and it’s no fun unless it noisy.
Every way of choosing teams like this is flawed, and people will argue about them. Is the All Star game about the fans? if so, shut up, even if they decide to nominate Rory Fitzpatrick, or what we used to do in the old days, the “50,000 votes for Andrei Nazarov” campaigns in San Jose.
Or is the All-Star game about the best players? Then get rid of fan voting and let the GMs and coaches decide.
Complaining about box stuffing by Montreal is silly; every team’s booster groups do this to a greater or lesser degree; I’ve seen fans grab entire cases of ballots and “vote” through use of a power drill to mark 6″ stacks of ballots in one operation. Going online is nothing new here.
Ultimately, I like the current setup. The fans choose the starters, the league fills in the reserves. Fans are given and excuse to get involved and excited (and if you listen to some of the “fans are stupid” group, that’s a BAD thing. Hello?) but the league gets to choose the rest of the roster, so when all is said and done, maybe one or two players a year might get left out.
Big deal. Me? I just can’t get up the urgency to whine about this; I think the right people and right decisions happen 95% of the time, and after all, the only reason the All Star game exists is so the fans and pundits have something to complain about with it’s bad play and lack of intensity.
Me? I’ll just sit down and watch it and enjoy it for what it is. Let the players have a bit of fun in the middle of the league’s grueling schedule, let the league party a bit and let its hair down, and stop thinking too hard or getting too anal about what really doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.
