NHL All-Star teams: Alex Ovechkin makes two, which is bad Alex Ovechkin was so good last season, he was named an All-Star at a position he doesn’t play. In an embarrassing situation created by the Professional Hockey Writers Association (of which Jesse Spector and I are members), Ovechkin was voted as a first-team All-Star right wing and second-team left wing. He played a total of four games at the latter last season. Like Neil Greenberg noted, he was very good in those four games, but four games. SN’s ballots: Spector | Gentille PHWA members received an email during the voting process detailing which players switched positions. Ovechkin, for example, was listed as a left wing on the NHL’s website despite coach Adam Oates‘ decision to move him. Againnot good. Nike KD 6 Ice Cream PHWA, deservedly, was already under the gun for some questionable awards voting decisions. There are nearly 200 members, so some issues are unavoidable. That doesn’t make anyone immune to criticism, though, and the Ovechkin issue is New Adidas F50 Adizero large to ignore: 45 voters had him on their ballot. It’s hard to figure why they were counted at all. The end result: Taylor Hall of the Edmonton Oilers missed out when he should’ve been second. As an entry-level player, he would’ve received a contract bonus had he made an all-star team. So, something needs to change. Improving the process was discussed at the NHL Draft, and more writers continue to make their ballots public, which is a positive move. But even if the ballots stay private, they need to be cast with intellectual honesty by an informed voter, and in too many cases, that did not happen. UPDATE: Kevin Allen, USA Today national writer and PHWA president, released a statement on Wednesday expressing concern and communicating plans to avoid a repeat: It was the Professional Hockey Writers Associations recommendation that its members vote for Alex Ovechkin on the right wing, the position he played in the vast majority of his games this season. Prior to ballots being issued, we emailed a memo to our members them of Ovechkins position switch in 2012-13. But 45 of our members chose to vote for him on the left wing, the position he had played for many years. It is also the position listed for him on NHL.com. We are troubled by the all-star voting results, and plan to take a closer look at the events that led to Ovechkin winning All-Star acclaim at two positions. We know we got this wrong, and our objective is to make sure it never happens again. Even before this confusion was revealed, the PHWA had already planned a study of our voting process. At our annual meeting in New York, a committee was formed to look at all voting issues, including transparency and eligibility. The committee includes Mark Spector (Sportsnet.ca), Craig Custance (ESPN.com), Mike Russo (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), Nick Cotsonika (Yahoo.com), Bruce Garrioch (Ottawa Sun) and Frank Seravalli (Philadelphia Daily News). That group will also review this situation to see what can be done to eliminate this in the future. The rest of the first team: Sidney Crosby (center), Chris Kunitz (left wing), P.K. Subban and Ryan Suter (defensemen), and Sergei Bobrovksy (goaltender). Full voting results are below. NHL All-Star Team by Sean Gentille
@uc@d64ohsaf7s@uc@