Last week, the National Hockey League released their rosters for their divisional all-star rosters, and as with any other year, there were omissions that not only irked some fans of certain teams and players, but this year seems especially egregious, as there are numerous players that have more production than those who were selected.
SB Nation has a good article about this topic. If you scroll down the page to the Central division coverage, you will see a point about Mark Scheifele deserving to replace say, Jonathan Towes. Now before you get in a snit and say how much better Toews is, or how he has been a consistently a more productive player (not to mention three Stanley Cups to Scheifele's zero.)
That's all well and good for last year's game, or even the three before it. The point is, as of right now, and when balloting was open, Scheifele has more points than Toews. Period. Toews currently has seven goals and 14 assists for a total of 21 points. Scheifele has 19 goals and 21 assists for 40 points. yet, Toews is selected as a first-ballot all-star, while Scheifele sits at home and watches the game on t.v.
As far as that goes, Nikolaj Ehlers and Blake Wheeler also lead Toews in points, but they are nowhere to be found on the All-Star roster either. The same can be said about Claude Giroux, Max Pacioretty, or even the mighty Alexander Ovechkin. Now there's no doubt that Ovi, based on his past accomplishments, "deserves" to be there. The same with Toews. But why not just send the same players every year if that's the case? Is it because Scheifele and Ehlers aren't what the NHL classifies as a "superstar?" Are they too young? Well, no. Patrik Laine was selected. Of course, if he wasn't, there'd be a legitimate case for some sort of conspiracy.
An I the only one (besides Jets fans) who thinks this?
