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Old 12-16-2018, 09:38 PM   #17
SebC
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Here's who I would select:

F EDM McDavid
F CGY Gaudreau
F EDM Draisaitl
F VAN Petterson
F SJS Couture
F ARI Keller

D CGY Giordano
D SJS Burns
D LAK Doughty

G VGK Fleury*
G ANA Gibson

* = vote leader, mandatory pick

Construction logic.

Must pick:

McDavid: top scorer, EDM's best representative, high profile
Petterson: easily VAN's best player, and you need one
Giordano + Burns: far above all other defensemen, PPG+ vs ~0.65 P/G max
Fleury: fan vote, but makes life easier 'cause you need VGK representation
Gibson: of the goalies with strong SV% Gibson has easily the most minutes, and fills your ANA spot

Next picks:

Gaudreau + Draistaitl: #2 and #3 in scoring, these guys should get in.

That leaves you with 2F and 1D with no representative for LAK or ARI.
You either go Keller + Doughty or Kopitar + Ekman-Larsson. The forward options are really underwhelming here, but one of them makes the team due to Gio + Burns being too good to snub. I went with Keller over Kopitar because he has a slightly more respectable PPG, but it was close. The defensemen aren't that far off, as there's Gio/Burns, then Karlsson (who gets snubbed), then things get pretty clustered and these options are in the cluster.

Last forward:

On merit, it's Tkachuk. But with for the sake of the home fans, I picked Couture. Meier is slightly ahead of Couture in scoring but I think Couture gets it anyways, due to higher profile and tenure.

Snubs:

Tkachuk/Monahan: Due to having a representative from all teams, the max the Flames can send is four. Draisaitl, as EDM's second representative, cuts that to three, so Monahan is already missing out. Tkachuk makes way to home-team favouritism, and thus the 4th and 5th highest scorers in the division miss the team. I just don't see three Flames and one Shark happening, as much as it would be deserved.

Karlsson: A home team snub? Karlsson is scoring more than the ARI/LAK defenseman, but Couture is also better than their forwards. But you could argue that Keller + Kopitar + Karlsson works better than Couture + Keller + Doughty. That's also a viable construction.

Koskinen: top SV%, and the only guy with better GAA has half his minutes, but not enough minutes/popularity to go, and EDM's already got two forwards going. (Rittich is just below Koskinen, but comes from a team that's already got forwards going. He's not a top two goalie in the division, so he's not actually a snub.)

Last edited by SebC; 12-17-2018 at 12:46 AM.
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