Update (6:44 PM): Watching some of the pre-event coverage on CBC here in the Detroit area (home for the weekend). They say Pavel Datsyuk will face Tomas Vokoun in the breakway contest, while Chris Osgood will be up against Alexander Ovechkin. - Matt
… Tonight at 7:00 ET is the Dodge/NHL SuperSkills competition on Versus. Of the six non-YoungStar events (obstacle course relay, fastest skater, elimination shootout, accuracy shooting, hardest shot, and breakaway challenge), I can only find confirmation that Pavel Datsyuk and Chris Osgood will be competing in the last.
However, you have to think Pavel will be in on the accuracy event, the shootout event, and possibly the fastest skater as well.
Nick Lidstrom will probably be in the hardest shot competition and possibly the accuracy event.
Osgood, aside from the breakaway competition, will have to be in the shootout event.
… Speaking of Osgood, San Jose’s Ron Wilson is still hoping to convince Mike Babcock to start Evgeni Nabokov instead of the Red Wing. Sorry, Ron, but Osgood has been the better goalie this season, with his League-leading GAA and #3 save-percentage.
At first glance, Nabokov has his own League-leading stat, his 27 wins, going for him, but he’s played in 48 of the Sharks’ 49 games. That’s a winning percentage of .5625. Osgood, by comparison, has played in 26 of 51 with 20 wins for a winning-percentage of .7692, which translates out to 36 wins over 48 games.
Nabokov deserves to start the All Star Game over Osgood, Ron? Really?
… Ron Wilson, by the way, won’t give up the idea that his Sharks outplayed the Wings in the post-season last year. His comment that the Wings are “better now than they’ve ever been” is much appreciated, though.
… James Mirtle has a post up on how to fix the All Star Game. His solution? Make it a spectacle like the Winter Classic. No argument there, but I still think changing up the section process would go a long way in getting the fans interested, as well. In a day where so many fans have fantasy teams made up of players not from their team, why not have us vote for the entire roster instead of merely the starters?
… On a related note, the folks at AOL’s NHL Fanhouse talk about the future of the Game.
… Ted Kulfan has projected lines for the Western All Stars:
Nash-Datsyuk-Iginla
Sedin-Thornton-Gaborik
Arnott-Getzlaf-Perry
Horcoff-Kopitar-Ribiero
… I find this comparison of Daniel Alfredsson to Steve Yzerman just a little off-putting. I do not deny that he is a great leader and certainly the Senators’ MVP, if not the League’s, but Yzerman was one of those leaders that comes along just once or twice in a generation. I don’t think that’s just the Red Wings fan in me talking. To say The Captain is and was someone special is a major understatement.
Ottawa GM Bryan Murray pointed out that “winning brings recognition” and there’s no doubt that winning a Cup would vault Alfredsson to a higher level in the pantheon of leaders. But to Yzerman’s status?
I was impressed by Alfredsson in the Wings recent game in Ottawa, but part of my perception of him is tainted by having watched him get beaten by Buffalo’s Jason Pominville for a series-ending overtime goal in the 2006 Conference Finals. It’s unfair of me, I suppose, but that’s one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of the guy. (via Snapshots)
… George Malik has more on the Fabian Brunnstrom story.
… Ansar Khan has a nice piece on Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk.
… The Freep focuses on Chris Chelios today, with seven different Chelios-related headlines on their Wings page.
Steve Yzerman is my favorite athlete of all-time, so I of course and not trying to degrade him, but after the early 90’s with the arrival of Fedorov, Yzerman was no longer the superstar on the team. With the arrival of Shanahan, and later Brett Hull, he was really relegated to the quiet leader more than the force behind the machine. He scored some major goals, no doubt, and I’m not saying his play was average; he remained a great player. But in terms of long-term eliteness and carrying a team on the ice, one can imagine Alfredsson’s name in the same sentence.
As far as being a leader, I don’t think any of us REALLY know. All you hear is his teammates talking about what a great leader he was, and he talked the talk and walked the walk. But no one that wasn’t in the locker room knows JUST how great a leader Yzerman was, nor do any of us, especially those that have never played a sport at an elite level, know tangibly just WHAT a leader provides to his team in terms of winning games and championships.
Yzerman is definitely way ahead of Alfredsson in terms of his status of NHL history. Part of his not being the superstar as he got older was that he didn’t HAVE to be, and he has certainly carried himself better and been more consistent than Alfredsson. I’m not arguing that Alfredsson is a better player, I hope that’s been clear. But I do think that some of your swift dismissal of the idea IS the Red Wing fan in you. I certainly can’t imagine them in the same sentence, but forced to consider their roles within their teams, I can begin to imagine the possibility :).
About your expectation of Datsyuk in those competitions:
Year after year I expect certain players to participate in certain events. And year after year I instead find completely odd choices being made by the coaches. For example, this year I expected to finally watch Kovalchuk participate in a hardest shot competition. Instead it’s…Lecavalier?? And Brian Campbell vs. Duncan Keith in the fastest skater comp??? What about Gaborik, who has been dazzling fans with his breathtaking speed since his arrival to the NHL?!
It’s things like these strange choices that is contributing to the decline of the NHL All Star weekend’s popularity.
Oh, and about the Yzerman/Alfredsson comparisons? Yzerman was never a career playoff choker. Alfredsson was, until this last post-season.
Ian,
Great comment. I can definitely see how my “swift dismissal” comes out of my being a Wings fan. Still, Yzerman’s status as a leader is, as you suggest, a League-wide thing, and Alfredsson still has a ways to go. If he can win two or three Cups before he retires, he may be able to reach that tier.
Justin,
The coaches probably take a lot of input from the players and they also have to make sure everyone gets to display a “Skill.” So the occasional oddball selection is to be expected, I guess.
As for Lecavalier’s participating in the hardest shot competition, at least he didn’t disappoint. He would have won had Chara not been in it. That makes him an even more formidable opponent. It’s just too bad the Lightning are so bad around him this season.
On CBC, they had Joe Thornton talking about how fast Campbell is, so maybe it wasn’t as incongruous as it seemed. I do agree with you on Gaborik. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have been in that competition.
“…they also have to make sure everyone gets to display a ‘Skill.’”
You would think so…but then you realize that Jason Arnott participated in both accuracy shooting and hardest shot while Henrik Sedin got to do nothing except move a puck around other pucks for 3 seconds. And where was Kopitar all night?
Justin,
Good point. I hadn’t noticed that. I did think Arnott’s participation was odd, but Sedin and Kopitar completely slipped my mind.