If the NHL All-Star games hadn’t been turned into enough of a joke with the elementary school let the captains pick the teams move of the past few days today the New York Rangers who would be on the ballot this year were announced. If you were looking for the Rangers best players so far this season up front in Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan, Artem Anisimov or Brian Boyle you would be looking for a long time since they are not there. The three Ranger entries to the ballot are Marian Gaborik, Marc Staal, and Henrik Lundqvist.
Gaborik is the star of the offense for the Rangers, but obviously have 0 goals and only playing in four games should not be on the ballot. Marc Staal was seen as the number 1 defenseman on the club entering the year, though he has been outplayed by Dan Girardi and Michal Rozsival to this point in the season. Henrik Lundqvist has been Henrik Lundqvist as has a legit argument to be on the ballot. I am not saying that none of the three the NHL put up were All-star caliber players, but it is painfully clear that the All-star ballots were determined in the summer and the play of a guy during the year if not already deemed to be one of the best on his team will be meaningless in the voting process. If the goal is to have the biggest names in attendance at the game, then this is clearly the way to go, but something must change if the All-star game is meant to be filled with the guys playing oh I don’t know, the best hockey.
If I was nominating three Rangers to go to the game it would be Dubinsky, Callahan and Girardi.
