The current All Star Game system for making rosters is... weird. Sure, it’s for the 3 on 3 game style which is the NHL’s current gimmick to get people interested in the game, but it doesn’t seem to work. When you have so many legitimate stars left out, like two forwards in the top 10 in the whole NHL in points (Marner, Point), the leading NHL defenseman in points (Rielly), and more deserving players and even teammates being overlooked due to the restrictions on positions and “one player per team”.
It’s particularly silly for divisions like the Atlantic, which has so many great players in it. For a lark, that made me try to put together what a full NHL team roster comprising among Atlantic division players. That in turn led me to doing it for all the other divisions as well. Now I made some choices for who I like better, at times, so it might be different than other people may have chosen. But looking at it, which division do you think would win a best of tournament?
TEAM ATLANTIC
Nikita Kucherov - Steven Stamkos - Brayden Point
Auston Matthews - John Tavares - Mitch Marner
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak
Jack Eichel - Aleksander Barkov - Mark Stone
Victor Hedman - Morgan Rielly
Keith Yandle - Aaron Ekblad
Thomas Chabot - Rasmus Dahlin
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Frederik Andersen
Carey Price
How silly is it that this roster would STILL be missing guys like Skinner or Duchene? The defense might not be the best it could be, but I love the idea of a Chabot and Dahlin kid pairing for the fun of it.
TEAM METROPOLITAN
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Evgeni Malkin
Alex Ovechkin - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Nicklas Backstrom
Taylor Hall - Mathew Barzal - Sebastian Aho
Artemi Panarin - Claude Giroux - Phil Kessel
Zach Werenski - Seth Jones
Kris Letang - John Carlson
Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton
Henrik Lundqvist
Curtis McElhinney
Robin Lehner
Their forwards are great, their defense is ridiculous, but their goalies.......
TEAM CENTRAL
Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen
Patrik Laine - Mark Scheifele - Blake Wheeler
Alexander Radulov - Tyler Seguin - Jamie Benn
Mikael Granlund - Ryan O’Reilly - Patrick Kane
Roman Josi - P.K. Subban
Dustin Byfuglien - Colton Parayko
Miro Heiskanen - John Klingberg
Ben Bishop
Pekka Rinne
Devan Dubnyk
Maybe one of the better balanced teams in this format, but while all three goalies are good they all three have a history of being inconsistent/making me nervous.
TEAM PACIFIC
Elias Pettersson - Connor McDavid - Leon Draisaitl
Johnny Gaudreau - Patrick Monahan - Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk - William Karlsson - Jonathan Marchessault
Timo Meier - Joe Pavelski - Logan Couture
Erik Karlsson - Brent Burns
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Mark Giordano
Shea Theodore - Drew Doughty
John Gibson
David Rittich
Marc-Andre Fleury
Arguably the best goalies of the four divisions, in contention for best defense, and a pretty absurd forward group too.
So what do you think? If these four teams play a series of best-of-three tournaments against each other, who do you think comes on top (assuming everyone is fully healthy)?
ONTO THE LINKS
Back to Excited Episode 44 - Upgrade Time | by Arvind and Fulemin
If you want to read Kevin’s piece at MLHS about Pietrangelo trade that they reference during the podcast, you can find it here.
Leafs Musings: What Makes the Leafs Successful, Sandin’s Big WJC Showing, The Case For Moore in the Playoff Lineup, and Bracco’s on a Roll | by Kevin Papetti at MLHS
It was a weekend of prospect movement in the CHL, including a pair of Leafs prospects.
Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Fedor Gordeev traded out of Flint | by elseldo
Leafs goalie prospect Zachary Bouthillier is going to Saint John | by Katya
CWHL Recap: Furies fall to Canadiennes 3-1, Thunder lose 4-3 to Inferno in overtime | by nafio and mediajunkie
Have a great Monday!
Which NHL division would win a full-roster tournament?
Atlantic | 154 |
Metropolitan | 7 |
Central | 4 |
Pacific | 19 |