The starting line-ups for the 2008 All-Star Game to be played later this month in Atlanta were announced today and for the most part, the fans got it right. In the absence of a Vote-For-Rory campaign – in which Rory Fitzpatrick, a Vancouver Canucks’ reserve was almost elected to the starting line-up for last year’s game – there wasn’t a lot of intrigue or even public discussion of the All-Star voting process this time around.
In the Eastern Conference, where fans had to choose from among five solid candidates at the forward spot, they probably selected the best three: Sidney Crosby, Vincent Lecavalier and Daniel Alfredsson. Maybe the only surprise there was that the hometown Atlanta Thrashers fans didn’t try harder to get Ilya Kovalchuk, the NHL’s goal-scoring leader, into the starting line-up by stuffing the ballot box. Kovalchuk and the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin will certainly be added by the NHL’s hockey operations department later this week. Mats Sundin is the obvious Maple Leafs’ choice, even though Tomas Kaberle finished fourth in the balloting for Eastern Conference defencemen. Presumably, the league will give Sundin the option of going, or taking the weekend off, and at this stage of his career, having not played a post-lockout All-Star Game, you’d expect that Sundin would say yes.
Over in the West, maybe the only surprise was that the Calgary Flames’ Jarome Iginla, the leading scorer in the conference, was elected to the starting line-up for the first time in his career. He will be joined by teammate Dion Phaneuf, plus Vancouver Canucks’ goaltender Roberto Luongo and a trio of Detroit Red Wings’ stars, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom. Although the NHL no longer requires that every team be represented in the All-Star Game any more, they try to get a cross-section of players nonetheless. So with only three teams represented in the West, it’ll be hard for the Red Wings’ Brian Rafalski, the Flames’ Kristian Huselius or the Canucks’ duo of Henrik and Daniel Sedin to crack the squad as additions.
About the only flaws in the voting took place down where it didn’t matter in the end anyway. The Sharks’ Jonathan Cheechoo, he of the 11-point first half, finished ahead of Marian Gaborik, Ryan Getzlaf, Rick Nash and Paul Stastny among others in the balloting. The Kings’ Michael Cammalleri slumped badly after a 10 goals-in-10 games start, but he received almost 100,000 votes more than teammate Anze Kopitar, a much more deserving choice. Cammalleri finished fourth among forwards just behind Iginla, and received about 18,000 votes more than the Sharks’ Joe Thornton, who is in the midst of another fine year.
