toby91_ca

You think it must be fixed if Letang has more votes than Ovechkin and Datsyuk? Why? Letang is having a breakout year and is in the discussion for the Norris trophy. He's amoung the scoring leaders for defensemen and is amoung the league leaders for +/-. In my opinion, he won't be in the top 3 for Norris by the end of the year, let alone win it, but for now, he's in the discussion. Ovechkin is on pace for less than 30 goals this year, that's why his votes are down. Lastly, what's the point of fixing it, what does it matter? Is Letang going to be an allstar at the expense of Ovechkin and Datsyuk? No, they'll be there anyway. What does being in the top 6 really mean anyway? Means nothing. All it means is that the fans were given the chance to vote and that will matter for a very, very small portion of the roster, who cares? Let's look at who was selected and whether they deserve to be on the team or not: - Crosby - no brainer - Malkin - down year, but no question he's one of the stars of the league. If it were up to me, he'd probably be off the team, but no travisty to include him - Letang - no brainer, he's having an incredible year - Fluery - this is the one for me that I would disagree with, but he is top 5 in GAA I think, even after the terrible start, top 7 in wins. The 14-1-1 stretch he had probably helped a lot here, but I'd suggest his inclusion would be quesionable. - Toews - he's actually on pace, statistically, for his best year in the NHL and he's coming off a Stanley Cup win and Conn Smythe, I've got no problems with him on the team (he was picked at the beginning of the year as the 3rd best player in the world, I disagreed quite a bit, but don't disagree with allstar status) - Keith - similar arguments as mentioned for Toews. So at the end of the day, guys like Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Ovechkin, etc. are going to be there anyway, so what's the problem? In my view, there is really only 1 questionable inclusion at this point and even with him, there are good arguments to include. I used to love the skills competition and allstar game when I was younger, not as much anymore, but I still try to watch. Less interest is probably because when I was a kid, I was able to watch my favourite players that I didn't get to see on a regular basis. As a kid, I basically had Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday and not too much beyond that (ignoring playoffs of course). More and more games started to get shown on TSN, etc. over the years, but I still didn't get to see everyone regularly. Now, I can pretty much watch any game I want, so it doesn't feel as important. I still like seeing the results of the fastest skater and hardest shot though, other than that, not much interst. Take it for what it is, marketing. Not sure why people complain about it being a marketing ploy. The NHL is a business and it needs to market itself, of course it is marketing, allstar games in all sports are simply marketing. Some sports may try to add incentives for players to want to win to make the game better, but at the end of the day, it's all still just marketing. So what if it is more focused on the younger viewer, that's who they should be targeting. If you are an older person and a fan, you are still going to be a fan regardless and if you are older and not a fan, unlikely that you will become one, so they need to market to the youth as they are the next generation of fans. They would be completely stupid not to do so.

I know you are one of the biggest Crosby bashers out there, but come on, how does that ad show anything regarding Crosby being one of the captains. I think you need to get your facts straight, which are as follows: 1 - the captains will be selected by the 42 players that are chosen as allstars, so if Crosby is one of those captains, you can blame the players, not the fans, not the league, not Versus, not NBC, etc. 2 - Crosby was featured once in that ad, Ovechkin was featured 4 times....so what is the ad really showing regarding Crosby being the captain?

Strange way to introduce an article. The topic is shorthanded goals and it mentions Draper and Maltby as a tandem who didn't really score a lot. Doesn't say anything about them being the top penalty killers of all time. Is this your article....just trying to bring attention to it?

I'm sure Lidstrom would be one of the captains, but not so sure about the other captain, I'll reserve my guess until I see the total pool of 42 players from which to pick. I hear this all the time, but I don't really understand it. If the team has great players, which is a good thing, then some of those great players will get selected for the all star team, regardless if they are voted in by the fans or not. Not having anyone selected probably means the team isn't very good and that's not what I want. I also enjoy watching these guys at the skills competition, etc. Otherwise, I'd probably have very little interest in watching (still some, but very little).

This was part of the Winter Classic hoopla...questions are limited to Crosby vs. Ovechkin though. http://insider.espn.go.com/nhl/insider/news/story?id=5970887&action=upsell&appRedirect=http://insider.espn.go.com/nhl/insider/news/story%3fid%3d5970887 I'm not an insider, so I don't have full access, but I was able to find the results at least: ESPN conduced a pre-Winter Classic poll of the NHL players. The Penguin-relevant questions and the results are:

Probably important to note that the concept of "starters" no longer exists either, which is apparent by the headline "First 6....". Obviously, you can't have a starting line up made up of only 6 players anyway.

Good question, haven't seen anything on that yet. It's been that way in the recent past, but a lot of other changes are being implemented this year, so you never know.

Yeah probably, but I think it would be stretch to also include Zetterberg. Doubt you'll see 3 players from the same team. The Pens have 4 because of voting (3 probably deserve it), but if the NHL operations were picking, they probably wouldn't want that much representation from one team.

I'd guess he'd still be the top vote getter. In a recent poll of players (small sample though, only 26 players from 10 different teams, 5 in the East and 5 in the west), 100% of those players picked Crosby as the best player in the league. Of course, the question was "Who's the best player in the league, Crosby or Ovechkin?" - so if the question was simply who is the best player, he may or may not have rec'd 100% of the votes.

The two captains don't pick the rest of the players. The rest of the 36 players will be selected (by NHL operations/GMs, something like that) and then the 42 players will vote on the two captains. Those two captains will then pick the teams out of the that pool of players. The teams will be named after the two captains.

Re-reading this thread gives me a chance to comment on something I didn't really think too much about before. None of us saw this guy play, so all we can go on is stories and stats. Normally, when going back this far, I rely more on stories than stats, but in Laurie's case, some of the stories just don't add up. I'll quote the original post in the thread: If he was the heart and soul of the franchise for 11-12 years, why was he only the captain for one season? In terms of being instrumental in the first two stanley cups, in 1936, he finished with 2pts in the playoffs, good for an 11th place tie on the team with 2 other guys on a roster with 14 players. I know scoring isn't everything, but I'm not sure how instrumental he really was. In terms of 1937, he didn't even play in that cup run. His number was retired because he was the owner's favourite, I'm convinced of that. I wouldn't really have much of a problem with it if the organization didn't hold back retiring numbers so much so that it's really only the true elite players in the history of the organization (we're talking more than just hall of famers here). That said, I'll re-affirm my orginal comment, I don't agree with the number being retired and I can understand why Ilitch wouldn't want it up with the rest, but a previous owner retired the number, he should honour that decision. Keeping it out of circulation, but not up in the rafters is not "honouring" that decision, but I think keeping it out of circulation is what makes the organization feel better about themselves.

If it wasn't for Campbell, this game would be a blowout by now. Edit: ha, guess I was a couple minutes late in my thought.

I'm still trying to figure out why it being American vs. Canadian has any impact on whether it is a better sport or not......confused.

No thanks. I don't vote anyway, but if I did, I'd vote for the best 6 players, what's the point in voting in players just because they are Wings? So seriously, you've been voting multiple times a day, every day? For real?

1) Doesn't really matter if it was intentional or not, it's like highsticking, you still have to make the call. 2) I have been playing hockey for 28 years now and I can honestly say that my stick has almost never left my hand, other than when someone slashes it out of my hand (which hasn't happend much either), I can't even remember a single instance where I lost my stick. I'm sure it's happened several times, but obviously not that often. So, holding on to your stick with hockey glove is actually pretty easy. If you find it almost impossible, maybe you should consider changing your gloves, or maybe the way you tape your stick needs to change.

There really isn't anything to judge, that simply a blown call, no doubt about it.

Crosby with another 2 goals tonight...20 goals in his last 17 games, craziness.

Off topic, sort of on topic, I had a look at the trackers for the other awards. Letang is the front runner for the Norris. Now, I know Letang has taken his game to another level this year and aside from points, is good defensively....but I wouldn't even have him in my conversation for Norris, let alone the front runner. Maybe that's just because of this award....the Norris, more than any other award from what I see, tends to have some reputation basis involved. In other words, it takes a lot of time before guys actually notice you and start considering you. At the other end, guys tend to get thought of for the award just because of who they are as well.

With Crosby, it's not only the point totals, his defensive game is actually pretty good. He's improved year after year, which is largely not noticeable, but this year, a lot of people are actually noticing his defensive game. He's not going to win the selke this year and is not on the same level as Dats yet in terms of defensive game, but I woudln't be surprised if he gets there at some point in the next few years, he just seems to have an uncanny ability to go away during the summer and work on a part of the game people think is lacking and comes back for the next season vastly improved in that area.

Yes, I agree, the Pens certainly do lack some depth at the moment, but I think that will improve when they get Malkin and Staal back. Not to the point that they can compete with Detroit's depth though. Part of my point was that Crosby's crazy goal and point pace makes the depth look a little worse than it actually is. Which is what I was trying to get at with the Gretzky reference. He accounted for a large % of the team's production, which might look like a depth problem, but clearly, they didn't have an issue with depth.....Pittsburgh currently does, just not as bad as the percentages would make it appear.

It's hard to say what it means right now. Some might think that if a team has a player that puts up points that dwarf's that of his teammates then you can simply shut him down and win because they have no scoring depth, but it's not really that simple. For example: Team A - player 1 = 50pts, player 2 = 20pts, player 3 = 18pts Team B - player 1 = 15pts, player 2 = 14pts, player 3 = 14pts In that scenario, Team B obviously has the better "balance", but there's no way they should have an advantage over Team A. You can have imbalance simply because a player is putting up so many points that the next highest scorer seems so much lower. For Crosby and the Pens, I think it's a bit of Crosby dominating right now and some injury problems they have. Cleary, they don't have the same depth of the Wings, but I also wouldn't call them a one man show either just because Crosby has double the points of the #2 scorer. Look back to Edmonton in the 80s, Gretzky outscored his teammates by a staggering amount, but they still had plenty of scorers without him.

Can't say I've ever heard the term "ripper bloke" before.

8 goals scored and no points for Savard?

What kind of a freakin arena do they plan on building for $1 billion??? The new arena in Pittsburgh, which just opened, was built for around $300 million and everything I've heard or read, that arena is pretty spectacular. Why do you need almost 4 times as much money to build something in Edmonton? I know labour in Alberta is expensive, but still.

Heard a bit about this last night and this morning on the radio, pretty interesting if it goes through. They'd own the Jays, Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC (soccer). A lot of the talk is that it woudl be good for the Leafs (from a fans perspective) in that Rogers would be more vested in putting a winning team on the ice than Teachers. Teachers simply hold it as an investment and whether the team wins or losses, money keeps rolling in.