Puckstopshere Kukla's Korner
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Potential For The NHL To Fix The ALL Star Fan Voting
We have our first partial results in the fan voting for the 2017 NHL All Star Game. The NHL is listing the leaders in the voting with no vote totals. That is a rollback in the information they are giving to fans.
This comes after last year when John Scott was voted into the All Star Game by fans because he had no All Star credentials but went on to win the All Star Game MVP. The NHL tried to keep Scott out of the game. He was traded to Montreal and sent to the minors before the game occurred. However they could not avoid the backlash of fans and let Scott play and become the story of the game.
This year they announced that players who get votes must be "bonafide NHLers" and will not allow votes for players in the minor leagues or on injured lists. Nevertheless, Jack Eichel is listed as the fourth highest vote getter in the Atlantic Division when he spent some of the voting period so far on the injured list. Effectively this appears to mean that the NHL will replace any player who they don't want in the All Star Game and they won't tell us how many votes anyone has so they can manipulate this without fans being aware how large a margin of support existed for the player they pulled from the voting.
This is a pattern with the NHL. They refuse to give fans information that they want such as salary cap information because it could make the NHL look bad. All Star Game votes are one more facet of the game that the NHL has decided fans do not need to know.