The NHL released the reserves for the Eastern Conference All-Stars at noon, and while congratulations are in order to Alex Ovechkin, rightly named to the team after the starter voting snafu, center Niklas Backstrom (seventh in the conference in scoring) and defenseman Mike Green (third in conference in scoring for defensemen, despite missing a dozen games) were left off the squad.
Here's the list of reserves announced today:
Forwards: Jeff Carter (C-PHI), Marc Savard (C-BOS), Vincent Lecavalier (C-TB), Eric Staal (C-CAR), Alex Ovechkin (LW-WAS), Dany Heatley (LW-OTT), Ilya Kovalchuk (LW-ATL), Zach Parise (LW-NJ), Thomas Vanek (LW-BUF)
Defense: Jay Bouwmeester (D-FLA), Zdeno Chara (D-BOS), Tomas Kaberle (D-TOR), Mark Streit (D-NYI)
Goalies: Henrik Lundqvist (NYR), Tim Thomas (BOS)
I'm a big proponent of having each team represented in the All-Star game, so I'm not going to cry foul too hard when evaluating these reserve selections. Phil Kessel (24-16-40, +16), Patrick Elias (18-28-46, +15) and Mike Richards (15-27-42, +16) have just as much beef as Backstrom does about being left off in favor of Staal (18-13-31, +11), Lecavalier (16-18-34, +4) or Heatley (16-20-36, -2).
I guess it just goes back to the Montreal players voted in who simply don't belong.
Here's the list of reserves announced today:
Forwards: Jeff Carter (C-PHI), Marc Savard (C-BOS), Vincent Lecavalier (C-TB), Eric Staal (C-CAR), Alex Ovechkin (LW-WAS), Dany Heatley (LW-OTT), Ilya Kovalchuk (LW-ATL), Zach Parise (LW-NJ), Thomas Vanek (LW-BUF)
Defense: Jay Bouwmeester (D-FLA), Zdeno Chara (D-BOS), Tomas Kaberle (D-TOR), Mark Streit (D-NYI)
Goalies: Henrik Lundqvist (NYR), Tim Thomas (BOS)
I'm a big proponent of having each team represented in the All-Star game, so I'm not going to cry foul too hard when evaluating these reserve selections. Phil Kessel (24-16-40, +16), Patrick Elias (18-28-46, +15) and Mike Richards (15-27-42, +16) have just as much beef as Backstrom does about being left off in favor of Staal (18-13-31, +11), Lecavalier (16-18-34, +4) or Heatley (16-20-36, -2).
I guess it just goes back to the Montreal players voted in who simply don't belong.
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