Saturday FTB: what the NHL All Star game rosters could be

Do y’all remember back in the day, before I had developed the ability to remember things (people in my life say I still haven’t, to be fair), the NHL used to have their All-Star Games be East vs West? Baseball used to do this with their American and National Leagues, where the winner of the All-Star Game getting home field advantage for their representative in the World Series — a big deal. The players played hard for those games. They pinch ran, they stole bases, they played for sacrifices.

What if that could be this league, this year? What would NHL East vs West rosters look like? I took some time and put something together. And I gotta tell you, just the Atlantic 20-player roster was deep. So was the Metro. I had to make a lot of tough decisions putting them together, especially at forward. Same with the West, but skewed more on defense.

I’m sure I missed or removed someone obvious from these rosters, so I’d love to see your teams! Post them in the comments (and if you don’t read the articles, I’m sure you’ll catch on soon enough).

The East Roster in 2023

Nikita Kucherov - Auston Matthews - Tage Thompson
Artemi Panarin - Jack Hughes - David Pastrnak
Alex Ovechkin - Sidney Crosby - William Nylander
Andrei Svechnikov - Brayden Point - Matthew Tkachuk
Nico Hischier

Rasmus Dahlin - Adam Fox
Victor Hedman - Charlie McAvoy
Zach Werenski - Kris Letang
Moritz Seider

Linus Ullmark
Ilya Sorokin

The West Roster in 2023

Jason Robertson - Connor McDavid - Nathan MacKinnon
Matthew Beniers - Trevor Zegras - Kirill Kaprizov
Leon Draisaitl - Jack Eichel - Patrick Kane
Timo Meier - Ryan O’Reilly - Mikko Rantanen
Bo Horvat

Miro Heiskanen - Cale Makar
Drew Doughty - Calen Addison
Quinn Hughes - MacKenzie Weegar
Erik Karlsson

Connor Hellebuyck
Juuse Saros

What say you, NHL?  The East’s offense vs the West’s defense? Kucherov-Matthews-Thompson vs Robertson-McDavid-MacKinnon? Dahlin-Fox vs Heiskanen-Makar? The Fun Line of the West vs the A-Hole Line of the East? WHO WOULDN’T WANT THIS???

Anyway, I can’t wait for the NHL’s next hairbrained scheme to get players to care about the All-Star Game while we all patiently wait for the next Olympics or World Cup with best-on-best at their best playing for something meaningful.

Who wins?

I know who definitely will win — the NHL and their fans.

Various Leafs and Branches

T25 revisited: Once again, we were wrong in our analysis | by: Katya

Winter Classic sets new cable mark, if still on low side | from: Sports Media Watch

Tyler Tabobondung Rushnell’s Maple Leaf is beautiful. Please check out their stuff and this collab.

Meet Tyler Tabobondung Rushnell, the artist behind our Indigenous Celebration game warm up jersey & logo pic.twitter.com/F3SCJHtAQc

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) January 6, 2023

Very interesting read on the Ottawa Senators new ownership market.

Neko Sparks has a goal of being the first Black owner in the NHL.

And the Los Angeles entrepreneur has put together a consortium with the intention of bidding on the Ottawa Senators.

“They have the backers and the financial instruments to pull this off.” https://t.co/3W0fyho3rx

— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) January 6, 2023

So, which of your kids born since COVID want to be traded?

Watch Peterborough, Barrie and Ottawa here. Sound like the ask is a high end 2005 or 2006 born player (maybe even both) plus three 2nd round picks and three 3rds. https://t.co/ngGQzYdm2D

— Jeff Marek (@JeffMarek) January 6, 2023