We are officially into the NHL All Star Weekend with the player draft commencing last night.
I for one enjoyed the draft last night. The players seemed to be enjoying themselves (by staying "hydrated") and it is nice to see some personality come through as opposed to the standard post game speak we are normally accustomed to.
The Kessel Seguin trade was great, as was Ovechkin's persistence for his Honda Accord that was never to be.
No sign of @ovi8 's liver at optional skate this morning...... #NHLAllStarWeekend
— Strombone (@strombone1) January 24, 2015
Marc-Andre Fleury was the fourth goalie selected. I believe he will be the most entertaining to watch this evening at the skills competition. This is the kind of event he was made for.
The game itself on Sunday won't truly showcase some of these player's amazing abilities, but the new Go Pro video that was released yesterday does. Most of you have probably seen this video already, but for those that haven't, you are welcome.
We know that Sid and Geno will not be taking part in the All Star Game festivities this year and we also know that they will be missing the game against Winnipeg on Tuesday. This is not going to be good from an entertainment standpoint as well as an on-ice product standpoint.
Here are the top two point producers from each top ten goals per game team and what percentage of their teams goals they are in on.
Tampa Bay scores the most goals per game so their players start the chart on the left and things work their way down to the 10th ranked Red Wings. Penguins are seventh.
Crosby and Malkin lead the way on this chart. That is going to be quite the void to fill especially with Hornqvist and Comeau still out of action. I wouldn't be surprised to see Perron reunited with his former linemate in Edmonton, Mark Arcobello.
You will also notice that the top scoring teams in the league don't have huge spikes. They are getting secondary scoring and thus why they are the top scoring teams in the league.
Here is to hoping that Sid and Geno can return to full health sooner than later, the Penguins are obviously in a bad spot without them.
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I wrote a piece for Hockey Prospectus about Ryan O'Reilly and why the Sabres are the perfect team to make a run at him. You can find that here
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