Will New All-Star Game Format Leave Montreal Canadiens’ Max Pacioretty At Home?
The National Hockey League has announced major changes to the league’s All-Star Game format today. Gone are the days of lackadaisical defense being played by superstars at 5-on-5 and being introduced is a wide open 3-on-3 format featuring four teams.
Each team will be made up of one of the NHL’s divisions. The Atlantic All-Star team will play a 20 minute 3-on-3 game against the Metropolitan All-Stars. The two Western Divisions (Pacific and Central) will each form a team that will play against each other as well. The two winning teams will move on to the All-Star Game finals and play a 20 minute game to crown a champion.
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In an effort to entice teams to take the game a little more seriously than we have seen in the past, the NHL is putting a one million dollar prize on the line for the winning team.
Though the All-Star Game has become extremely stale in recent years and was in need of an overhaul, I’m not sure this is going to breathe new life into a dying event. The game was boring due to the limited amount of defense played and even less amount of contact throughout the 60 minute snooze-fest.
Will changing the format to 3-on-3 change that? No, it will make for an even more high-scoring affair where goals are scored so frequently that media members will actually take a day off from talking about making nets bigger.
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However, having said all that, I then thought about how much fun it would be to watch Subban on the ice with and against the best players in the world in a 3-on-3 format. This leads to the question: how many Habs are going to be heading to this event on Sunday, January 31 in Nashville, Tennessee?
Well, Price won every award in the league last year and has been even better this season before an injury knocked him out of the lineup. He could be back this weekend, so he will be ready to play long before the All-Star Game and is a lock to be asked to play in the event.
Since it’s a 3-on-3 event, the lineup will be made up of just six forwards, three defensemen and two goaltenders. Each team in the division has to send at least one player, so the All-Star team can’t be made up of just Habs players.
The Atlantic Division has a lot of defensemen who would be perfect for the event. Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators came out earlier this season to say he is not a fan of the NHL’s 3-on-3 overtime format, but he’s a lock to be in Nashville for the game. Morgan Rielly of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins, Mike Green of the Detroit Red Wings, Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Brian Campbell of the Florida Panthers would all be fantastic in a game like this one.
However, as impressive as the list of Atlantic Division defenders is, I can’t see how the NHL can keep a player, and a personality like Subban out of the All-Star Game. Even if he was an awful hockey player, the league would be wise to bring him to the game just to do interviews and try to sell the game of hockey in a non-hockey market.
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Up front, Max Pacioretty makes a strong case to be on the team and Alex Galchenyuk would be tons of fun to watch. However, my guess is the Habs forwards will be shut out of the event. It’s not that I think Pacioretty isn’t one of the best six forwards in the division, it just becomes a numbers game when every team needs to send at least one player.
I’d say Subban, Karlsson and Hedman should be chosen as the three defenders and Roberto Luongo is the safe choice to join Price as the goaltenders. That means the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators all have to send a forward. Let’s pencil in David Krejci, Henrik Zetterberg, Nazem Kadri, Jack Eichel and Kyle Turris for the sake of putting an actual roster together.
This leaves just one forward spot left and it comes down to Pacioretty and Steven Stamkos. Stamkos happens to be one of just two players in the league who has been a better goal scorer than Pacioretty over the past three seasons, so he gets the nod just ahead of the Habs sniper.
Is the format for the All-Star Game perfect? No, not even close. Does the rule that says all 30 teams in a professional sports league have to represented at the game make sense? No, but it’s the reality and it could force several worse forwards than Pacioretty to represent the Atlantic Division at the game.
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Do I even really care about the All-Star Game? No, not really. However, I would like to see the best players at the game and the fact that this rule could very well keep Pacioretty out of the game is foolish.