(Photo Credit: Getty Images — Alexander Semin looks sad…see below why)
Our good friend Julie has been kind of enough to say a few words about her All Star Game voting experience. It goes a little something like this. Enjoy and comment away.
Where to start?
I went to cast my votes for the All-Stars, and found I couldn’t vote for Alexander Semin unless I put him in as a write-in vote. No big surprise, that snub has been all over the news lately. However, what I do find is that I can vote for players that are injured and out long-term, because Zach Parise, Vincent LeCavalier, and TJ Oshie are both on the All-Star Ballot, and I can also vote for players who are having a very sub-par season thus far, such as Ilya Kovalchuk, David Krejci, Shane Doan and Marian Gaborik (though Gaborik is recently back from injury).
Can I vote for Claude Giroux? No. He’s missing from the ballot. How about Tomas Plekanec? No. Also missing from the ballot. Chris Stewart, Brandon Dubinsky, Andrew Ladd and Loui Eriksson are also curiously left off of the ballot.
Moving right along to defensemen… I think Kris Letang is worthy of my consideration. But the NHL doesn’t. He’s mysteriously missing from the ballot, as is John-Michael Liles, Jordan Leopold and Christian Ehrhoff. But again we have players out long-term with injury on the ballot, like Dion Phaneuf and Andrei Markov. And players who have no business being on the ballot. Like Mark Streit, who hasn’t played a game all year, Dan Hamhuis, Brian Campbell (just back in the lineup after injury) and Shea Weber (who has 7 points, but is also a -7).
And do we really want to look at goalies? Craig Anderson will be back before the All-Star game, but has missed significant time this season. Perennial favorites Martin Brodeur, J-S Giguere, Nikolai Khabibulin and Marc-Andre Fleury are on the ballot, but none of them deserve to be this year. Missing from the ballot, though, are Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky, Jimmy Howard and Michal Neuvirth. Also, Antero Niittymaki is not on the ballot, though his teammate, Antii Niemi, IS.
How about some standards, NHL? Give us fans SOME credit. We’re not all stupid enough to vote Brodeur in every year, not even all of us who live in New Jersey. We’re not all going to vote Sean Avery in, although I can’t deny the thought is intriguing, mostly just because it’d be a great big f*ck you to Gary Bettman.
Then again… maybe we are that stupid. After all, we voted Mario Lemieux in as a starter in 2005. But then again, he’s a guy the NHL would have wanted there anyway. Like if Sidney Crosby got hurt, or put up 0 points through the first quarter of a season. The NHL would still want him at the All-Star Game. So how about in cases like that, the NHL invite the player to the game rather than putting him in a slot on the ballot that could be given to someone who’s earned it?
Back to standards… how about instituting requirements for being named to the ballot? If you’re a goalie, let’s say you have to have a CURRENT SEASON Goals Against of below 3.00, and Save Percentage above 90% (.900). It’s a little harder to institute set requirements for defensemen, because while putting a minimum +/- in place might be nice, one does have to take into consideration you’re eventually going to run across a guy like James Wisniewski, who puts up points, hits, and isn’t afraid to block a shot, but is a -12 because of the team he’s stuck on. Same with forwards, you could put a minimum number of goals or assists, but some guys are goal scorers, and others are helpers, and others deserve consideration despite low point totals (again, because of the team they play on).
If the All-Star game is for fans, how about letting fans vote for more than just the starting lineup? How about letting fans choose more than one write-in for each position, assuming we’re going to keep going with the listings including injured players and undeserving players?
Yes, it opens up a whole new can of worms, letting fans write in more choices, but so long as the players getting listed on the ballot aren’t injured or undeserving, one write-in option would still be sufficient, and for most fans, more than sufficient. It can’t be that difficult to determine that Mark Streit probably shouldn’t be on the All-Star ballot, considering he hasn’t played a game all year… or to determine that Alexander Semin SHOULD be on the All-Star ballot, considering he’s second in the league in goals. Similarly, it can’t be that difficult to erase Andrei Markov’s name from the online ballot and replace it with someone else’s name.
The NHL has made some good strides towards making the All-Star game more fun for fans, for players… time to update the way players are selected to the team now. The All-Star games of any sport are never going to be the end-all be-all of a season, but they could at least be relevant, and bring respect to players who are selected to the team. And as the NHL has shown with its current format changes, they can be enjoyable, exciting, and fun. As they should be.
