Pavel Datsyuk, right, and Zdeno Chara chat in the Team Chara dressing room prior to the 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game at Scotiabank Place in Kanata, Ont. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
In this edition of Stellicktricity, some post NHL all-star weekend observations:
-- It was a great acknowledgment and a sign of respect for Zdeno Chara to forgo team captain alliances and bias for the first-overall pick and use it to select Pavel Datysuk. It showed to the world the seal of approval from his NHL peers how much Datsyuk is respected by his fellow NHL players. A great informal honour.
-- Logan Couture handled being selected last as well as could possibly be expected. I commend the NHL for having the final two picks stand together on the stage (kind of like the reverse of the Miss American pageant) rather than the one lonely player remain sitting all by himself like Phil Kessel last year.
-- Alexander Ovechkin added to the indignity of Kessel's 2011 plight by taking pictures of his misfortune (did Ovechkin realize that Kessell won a car and a $20K charity donation?). This year Ovechkin made news by snubbing the all-star game while he served his three-game suspension from NHL sheriff Brendan Shanahan. I still view Ovechkin's performance in the 2009 all-star game at Montreal as the gold standard for adding colour and levity to the event. This year, credit Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and his Superman routine adding some of the Ovechkin-type colour to the event.
Lobby For Last
-- I have to think that, in the future, it will be the more veteran, savvy and colourful players like, say, a Scott Hartnell who will lobby hard to aspire to be that last selection and win the car and charitable donation. The format suits two of the more colourful players to be left standing and jawing at each other and at the respective captains. Maybe next year it can be Dave Bolland and one of the Sedins.
-- Don't know if it is evidence of the intense Montreal-Boston rivalry, but Carey Price claims that he truly didn't see Zdeno Chara, the tallest man in the NHL, when the captain extended his hand to shake the hand of his newest draftee. Chara had left making the Price selection to assistant captain Joffrey Lupul after making Boston Bruins teammate Tim Thomas the first goaltender selected a few rounds earlier. When Price approached the podium, Chara extended his hand and actually followed Price for a bit as Price made a left turn and headed to the team bleachers.
-- Trust Thomas to be the only goaltender to treat the all-star game like it was a seventh and deciding playoff game. His outstanding and enthusiastic and physical play in the third period robbed Daniel Alfredsson of the hat trick that Ottawa fans hoped for. Thomas now has the dubious honour of being the winning goaltender in four all-star games, something that apparently meant something to him. Would he have tried as hard if the trophy awarded for such a feat was the Barack Obama Cup?
-- Toronto fans might have been surprised by the venomous booing by Ottawa fans in attendance. I actually find it a sad memory of how things once were, when the Senators owned the Maple Leafs in the regular season, only to be crushed by the Leafs when the playoffs came around. Although it would just be nice in Toronto to be booed anywhere in the playoffs, having last appeared in 2004.
-- Spent much talk on our Hockey Night in Canada Radio Show talking to guests about new ideas for future all-star games. Mike Milbury mentioned the idea of having a round-robin tournament with more teams in a 3-on-3 format. When you think of it, the NHL all-star game really is a 3-on-3 style of played with six players on each team.
Flower Power
-- Talked to Milbury as well on HNIC Radio about a Grapeline radio segment I heard on Don Cherry's syndicated radio show a few days earlier. Milbury confirmed both stories. The first was that he hit Guy Lafleur with the hardest body check that Cherry had ever seen levied on the Montreal superstar.
"It was an exhibition game in Quebec City for the old Canada Cup tournament in 1976 between Team Canada and Team USA," Milbury shared. "I got Lafleur just perfect. I hit him with one of those checks that you never forget either delivering or receiving."
Lafleur never sought retribution or revenge directly -- until two years later as Cherry related and Milbury confirmed.
"In a regular-season game between the Bruins and Canadiens, Lafleur was coming a me full speed and just unleashed a shot that just missed my head by the narrowest of margins. If it had connected, I have no doubt that I would have been dead."
-- Talk about Tukka Rask and Corey Schneider being the top backup goaltenders in the game and they will likely continue those roles for at least another season with the Bruins and Vancouver Canucks, respectively. The St. Louis Blues have an interesting predicament of sorts with the best No. 3 goaltender in the game in Ben Bishop. With Jarolav Halak and Brian Elliott remaining the best goaltending tandem in the NHL this season, the Blues crease is too crowded for an NHL blue-chipper like Bishop. He has been somewhat content to excel with the Peoria Rivermen of the American Hockey League and was named the most valuable player in last Monday's AHL All-Star Game. The Blues will have to ease their crowded crease by one come the Feb. 27 trade deadline. Though born in St. Louis and having dreamed of playing with the Blues (Curtis Joseph was his childhood idol), Bishop feels he will likely be the one to be donning a new NHL uniform.
Gord Stellick
Gord knows hockey. He better. He became General Manager of the Leafs when he was 30 years old and then became Assistant GM for the Rangers. He's been covering the game ever since. He's now host of Hockey Night in Canada Radio, heard Monday to Friday, 3:00 p.m. ET - 6:00 p.m. ET on Sirius 157.
