2025 NHL All*Stars

There's no NHL All*Star Game this season.  Instead, they're having the Four Nations Face Off, a 10-day tournament between the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland in Montreal and Boston that's serving as a prelude to next year's Olympics, when NHL players will represent their countries for the first time since 2014.  Which means the NHL won't be announcing any All*Stars this season.

Ordinarily, the NHL takes advantage of the off weekend between the Conference Championship Games and Super Bowl by scheduling the All*Star Game for that Saturday.  That's what they'll do next year, when the NHL All*Star Game will return at UBS Arena on Long Island.  Gary Bettman has said it'll be a "sendoff" before the players leave for the Olympics in Milan.  The Olympics start on Feb. 6 and the Super Bowl is on Feb. 8, so that would allow for the All*Star Game to be played on its "regular" date, which would be Jan. 31.

Just because there's no NHL All*Star Game this year doesn't mean I can't pick All*Stars, though.  And, since the All*Star Game would likely have been next weekend, the teams would've been chosen by now.  So, I guess this is as good a time as any to name the 44 players I think would've been selected to play in the hypothetical 2025 NHL All*Star Game.

When the All*Star Game returns next season, I sure hope they do away with the stupid "pick your own teams" nonsense and go back to the four teams representing each division.  I hated the "fantasy draft" thing when it was two teams.  I hate it even more when it's four.  The draft itself is kind of cool, but even that turned into a joke when Auston Matthews picked all of the Maple Leafs and the Hughes brothers worked it so that they could get all of the Canucks.  So, please, let's go back to teams representing the divisions.

Another issue I had with last year's All*Star Game was how there were virtually no defensemen!  Of the 36 skaters, only four were defensemen.  Fortunately, it ended up that each team got one (which was only because Nathan MacKinnon made sure early on that he got Rasmus Dahlin, in what was likely a prearranged move).  I know fans like scoring and it's forwards who generally have the most points, but that's ridiculous.  So, I'm fixing that problem, as well.

I'm also assuming that the captains would be decided by fan vote.  Based on who the captains were last season, I have no reason to believe Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon and Conor McDavid wouldn't have been voted as the captains again.  The only change is in the Metropolitan Division.  With Alex Ovechkin's pursuit of the all-time goals record as the headline in the NHL this season (and the Capitals boasting the best record in the league), I'm giving him the nod in the Metro.  Outside of Matthews, they were each worthy of selection anyway, so that's not really much of a problem.

One thing I do love about the NHL All*Star Game is how every team is represented.  Baseball and hockey are the only sports where they do that.  Of course, 32 teams and 44 total All-Stars means some deserving players end up getting left off so that another team's token representative can go.  It can be problematic and lead to some finagling.  I think I was able to make it work, though.

Each division has two goalies, three defensemen and six forwards.  All four captains are forwards, which works out nicely since it gives me five additional forwards for each team.  The captains are listed first and italicized.  Everyone else is listed alphabetically by team.  And, with that, I present your 2025 Joe Brackets NHL All*Stars...

ATLANTIC
G: Sergei Bobrovsky (FLA), Andrei Vasilevskiy (TB)
D: Rasmus Dahlin (BUF), Moritz Seider (DET), Lane Hutson (MTL)
F: Auston Matthews (TOR, captain), David Pastrnak (BOS), Sam Reinhart (FLA), Brady Tkachuk (OTT), Nikita Kucherov (TB), Mitch Marner (TOR)

METROPOLITAN
G: Jacob Markstrom (NJ), Logan Thompson (WSH)
D: Zach Werenski (CBJ), Adam Fox (NYR), Jakob Chychrun (WSH)
F: Alex Ovechkin (WSH, captain), Mikko Rantanen (CAR), Travis Konecny (PHI), Sidney Crosby (PIT), Jack Hughes (NJ), Anders Lee (NYI)

CENTRAL
G: Jake Oettinger (DAL), Connor Hellebuyck (WPG)
D: Cale Makar (COL), Roman Josi (NSH), Josh Morrissey (WPG)
F: Nathan MacKinnon (COL, captain), Connor Bedard (CHI), Martin Necas (COL), Kirill Kaprizov (MIN), Jordan Kyrou (STL), Clayton Keller (UTA)

PACIFIC
G: Darcy Kuemper (LA), Adin Hill (VGK)
D: Jake Walman (SJ), Quinn Hughes (VAN), Shea Theodore (VGK)
F: Connor McDavid (EDM, captain), Troy Terry (ANA), Jonathan Huberdeau (CGY), Leon Draisaitl (EDM), Jared McCann (SEA), Jack Eichel (VGK)

It actually worked out pretty well that the teams with multiple All*Stars were the better teams in their divisions (makes sense, doesn't it?).  Florida, Tampa Bay and Toronto each had two in the Atlantic.  In the Metropolitan, it was three Capitals and two Devils.  Three Avalanche and two Jets in the Central.  And in the Pacific, the Golden Knights with three and Edmonton's dynamic duo of Draisaitl and McDavid.

The All*Star Game coaches are the coaches of the team with the best record in each division at the time of the selections.  Since this is all a hypothetical exercise, I'm using today as the "date of the selections."  The teams leading their respective divisions are the Maple Leafs, Capitals, Jets and Golden Knights.  So, congratulations to your All*Star coaches Craig Berube (Atlantic), Spencer Carbery (Metropolitan), Scott Arniel (Central) and Bruce Cassidy (Pacific).