No Game, But Still All*Stars

For the second year in a row, there's no NHL All*Star Game this season.  There was supposed to be.  It was originally scheduled for UBS Arena as the final game before the players left for Milan.  Then they turned it into an Olympic send-off event.  Then they cancelled it entirely and gave UBS Arena the 2027 All*Star Game instead (assuming there is one).

Last year, of course, the All*Star Game was replaced by the Four Nations Face-Off, which everyone agreed was better than an All*Star Game anyway.  That was just the appetizer for the NHL's return to the Olympics, where it won't just be four nations, it'll be 12!  And every NHL team will be represented by at least one player at the Olympics, too (and every country except for Italy will have at least one NHL player on its roster).

I get why the NHL ultimately decided against playing an All*Star Game this season, and I admit it would've been weird to have both the All*Star Game and the Olympics in the same year.  That hasn't happened since 2002 (the original plan for 2022 was the same as this year, they'd play in the All*Star Game, then leave for the Olympics from there).  So, the All*Star Game not being played in an Olympic year is not a problem at all.

Still, though, this means we're going two consecutive years without a formal All*Star Game.  And, assuming the World Cup of Hockey returns in 2028 as planned, it seems like it'll only be an every-other-year thing moving forward, with the international tournament (either the Olympics or World Cup) replacing the All*Star Game in even years.  Which is kind of unfortunate for other reasons.

By the NHL not having an All*Star Game in either of the last two seasons (and Russia being ineligible for international play), they haven't been able to properly recognize the league's all-time leading goal scorer on such a stage.  Alex Ovechkin hasn't played in an All*Star Game since 2023.  Assuming this is his last season, as many suspect, that will also be his last All*Star Game.

Ovechkin's not the only one.  There are some players whose only All*Star-caliber seasons came in years when there was no All*Star Game.  Sure, that's a combination of unfortunate timing and bad luck.  But it'll happen more as the All*Star Game continues to be played infrequently.  (For the quality of play and growth of the game perspective, replacing it with international play, which will be better anyway, makes complete sense.  I'm not suggesting they should have the All*Star Game instead of the international events in those years.  I'm just saying it sucks for those players.)

Anyway, where am I going with all this?  Well, just because there's no All*Star Game, that doesn't mean I can't select All*Stars.  So, that's exactly what I'm doing.  And, since the planned date is about two weeks away, roster announcements would've been right around now.  Which means now's as good a time as any to name my selections.

At the last NHL All*Star Game in 2024, fans chose one player from each division to serve as captains, but they used that stupid "pick your own teams" format and had the All*Star Draft as part of the Skills Competition.  As you can tell, I hate that format.  So, I'm not doing that.  Instead, I'm going back to the previous format of four division-based teams.  I'm keeping the fan-selected captains, but that's it.

Those four captains are Auston Matthews (Atlantic), Alex Ovechkin (Metropolitan), Nathan MacKinnon (Central) and Connor McDavid (Pacific).  Another selection criterion to keep in mind are that each division has an 11-member team consisting of two goalies, three defensemen and six forwards.  The complete lack of defensemen in recent All*Star Games is beyond bothersome, so I'm doing something about that.  Also, every team must be represented.  So, with 44 players and 32 teams, only a handful have multiple All*Stars.

That every team thing actually briefly tripped me up.  I had Rasmus Andersson as my Flame, but he was traded to Vegas, so I had to choose another Calgary player and ended up replacing Andersson with another defenseman since my replacement Flame was a forward.  And, as usual, some deserving players got left off because they already had a teammate going and I had to have somebody from every team.  Still, though, I think these rosters that I came up with are pretty good...

ATLANTIC
G: Jeremy Swayman (BOS), Andrei Vasilevskiy (TB)
D: Moritz Seider (DET), Lane Hutson (MTL), Jake Sanderson (OTT)
F: *Auston Matthews (TOR, captain), David Pastrnak (BOS), Tage Thompson (BUF), Alex DeBrincat (DET), Sam Reinhart (FLA), Nikita Kucherov (TB)

METROPOLITAN
G: Ilya Sorokin (NYI), Logan Thompson (WSH)
D: Zach Werenski (CBJ), Matthew Schaefer (NYI), Jacob Chychrun (WSH)
F: *Alex Ovechkin (WSH, captain), Sebastian Aho (CAR), Trevor Zegras (PHI), Sidney Crosby (PIT), Nico Hischier (NJ), Artemi Panarin (NYR)

CENTRAL
G: Scott Wedgewood (COL), Karel Vejmelka (UTA)
D: Cale Makar (COL), Justin Faulk (STL), Josh Marino (UTA)
F: *Nathan MacKinnon (COL, captain), Conor Bedard (CHI), Mikko Rantanen (DAL), Kirill Kaprizov (MIN), Ryan O'Reilly (NSH), Mark Scheifele (WPG)

PACIFIC
G: Darcy Kuemper (LA), Akira Schmid (VGK)
D: Evan Bouchard (EDM), Filip Hronek (VAN), Shea Theodore (VGK)
F: *Connor McDavid (EDM, captain), Leo Carlsson (ANA), Mikael Backlund (CGY), Leon Draisaitl (EDM), Macklin Celebrini (SJ), Jordan Eberle (SEA)