Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - NHL enacts John Scott All Star voting rule

FanIn80 · 11-23-2016, 01:38 PM

I quite like the direction the All-Star Game took last year. It seemed like the whole thing was somewhat competitive and the final game was actually (dare I say it) exciting. Jon Scott was a nice story line, but I get what they're trying to do and I will always be excited about watching the best players in the world actually compete against each other.

There is also another thing that hasn't been mentioned, and that is "All-Star Appearances" is a stat recorded, and used, by the Hockey Hall of Fame. I can't for the life of me understand why people treat it so lightly. When I'm looking at players from before my time, and I see that they played in 8 consecutive all-star games, that tells me more about their career than just their goals and assists. It tells me that they were legit all-star for a lengthy and consistent portion of their career. There are things you can extrapolate from that. If I see someone else with similar goals and assists, but they were only an all-star two or three times, it tells me that the two players are not comparable. Why is that? Did one play in higher-scoring era where scoring that many goals wasn't nearly as impressive? Were both players 30-goal scorers during the same era, but one was a Sean Monahan type who just drove the net and the other was a Johnny Gaudreau who would beat out four defenders before scoring, and thus had a bigger impact on the people watching the games?

Being voted to play in an All-Star game is a legit thing that typically doesn't pay a lot of dividends until much further down the road (outside of contract negotiations), but it's still a very important stat that can help future generations understand a player's true impact during their career. It's not surprising to me at all that the NHL (and I'd bet also the NHLPA) wants to protect it.

11-23-2016, 01:38 PM	#72
FanIn80 GOAT! Join Date: Jun 2006 Exp:	I quite like the direction the All-Star Game took last year. It seemed like the whole thing was somewhat competitive and the final game was actually (dare I say it) exciting. Jon Scott was a nice story line, but I get what they're trying to do and I will always be excited about watching the best players in the world actually compete against each other. There is also another thing that hasn't been mentioned, and that is "All-Star Appearances" is a stat recorded, and used, by the Hockey Hall of Fame. I can't for the life of me understand why people treat it so lightly. When I'm looking at players from before my time, and I see that they played in 8 consecutive all-star games, that tells me more about their career than just their goals and assists. It tells me that they were legit all-star for a lengthy and consistent portion of their career. There are things you can extrapolate from that. If I see someone else with similar goals and assists, but they were only an all-star two or three times, it tells me that the two players are not comparable. Why is that? Did one play in higher-scoring era where scoring that many goals wasn't nearly as impressive? Were both players 30-goal scorers during the same era, but one was a Sean Monahan type who just drove the net and the other was a Johnny Gaudreau who would beat out four defenders before scoring, and thus had a bigger impact on the people watching the games? Being voted to play in an All-Star game is a legit thing that typically doesn't pay a lot of dividends until much further down the road (outside of contract negotiations), but it's still a very important stat that can help future generations understand a player's true impact during their career. It's not surprising to me at all that the NHL (and I'd bet also the NHLPA) wants to protect it.