Takin' a T/O With BT: Imagine if These Guys Started in the NHL All Star Game...

Not what you'd expect: Everyone is up in arms about the domination by fans in Chicago, Anaheim, Montreal, and Pittsburgh with the NHL's All Star voting. While something does seem a little fishy, the rosters are set and ready to go, but there a few lesser-knowns who would've been fun to watch in Montreal later this month.

For the past few days, people around the world—alright, in Canada and the Northern United States—have been complaining about the All-Star balloting.

"I get Evgeni Malkin, but doesn't Alexander Ovechkin deserve it more than Sidney Crosby?"

"Why are Mike Komisarek and Alex Kovalev All Stars?"

"Isn't Jonas Hiller having a better season than Western Conference starter and teammate Jean-Sebastien Giguere?"

The answer to all of those questions? Probably (although if you dropped Kovalev all three could be starters), because 15 million of the 34 million votes were tabulated through text-message (by which you would vote for all of the team's representatives), and yes—but most people are smart enough not to ask that question.

But while fans point out that wins leaders Miikka Kiprusoff and Evgeni Nabokov were left out of the starting festivities while the horrid Marc-Andre Fleury received more votes than Tim Thomas, and somehow Radek Smolenak received 10,000 votes it just goes to prove a point:

Players will fall by the wayside, year-in and year-out without receiving the appropriate amount of recognition.

But while many of us have (and some still need to) come to accept this, there's a handful of players who have done outstanding jobs this season that wouldn't get mentioned amongst the shafted likes of Ovechkin, Thomas, Joe Thornton, Jarome Iginla, or Pavel Datsyuk.

Mark Streit is the first that comes to mind. Now there's no doubt that when you play for a last-place team like the New York Islanders you have to be a truly special player to squeeze your way onto a starting lineup, but when you're leading the league in points by defensemen, you'd think that would account for something.

Maybe even one vote?

Back in September during my NHL team previews, I pointed out that over half of Streit's  61-points were netted on Montreal power plays last year and I pegged him as a one-hit wonder.

This season Streit hasn't done much to dispute that as 20 of his 32-points are on the power play (that and he's got a disturbing minus-five rating), but he's still found a way to be one of the lone bright spots for an Islanders team suffering through major growing pains.

All-around defenseman or not, he should be there over Komisarek, but realistically he should've received at last as many votes as Wade Redden or Jay Bouwmeester.

Staying on defense over in the Western conference, many people are offended by the fact that Nik Lidstrom and Shea Weber have been left out of the game as starters in favor of Scott Niedermayer and Brian Campbell.

Campbell has had a good season so far for the Blackhawks but Niedermayer shouldn't have even sniffed a starting role when you look at the season he's having as well as the season those around him are having.

Brian Rafalski has always been underrated during his career. He was hidden behind Niedermayer and Scott Stevens in New Jersey, and then he got stuck behind Lidstrom in Detroit. Despite that though, Rafalski is putting in another great season.

He's tied with Dan Boyle for second in scoring amongst NHL defenders and has the third-best plus/minus (plus-11) of the top-ten scoring defensemen this season and has quietly formed one of the best defenses in the league alongside Nik Lidstrom.

Also, after coming off of a dramatically shortened campaign last season thanks to injury, Sheldon Souray had also made a strong case to be a starter this season.

Forward-wise, each conference has players that were just unable to cut it this season, but could have an argument made for each of them.

Both Zach Parise and Marc Savard have been having outstanding seasons so far, but their votes combined (Savard had just over 260,000) barely accounted for a quarter of those given to any of the Eastern Conference starters.

Across the way in the West, it's hard to argue the omissions of Iginla and Thornton with that of any other lesser-known, but if there were any two players who may not be as well known, but received a surprising amount of votes were Shane Doan and Mikko Koivu.

But in between the pipes is where the biggest oddity may come. Granted in the East no one deserves it more than Tim Thomas, and as far as a Dark Horse candidate to slide in beside Thomas is concerned you can argue that Ryan Miller (ironically enough a man who received more votes than Thomas) could be that player.

In the West though, it's not Kipper or Nabby who I'd like to see start, and despite a strong case in his defense there's another player I would choose above Steve Mason (although he's played well enough in his brief NHL stint to earn at least more votes than teammate Pascal Leclaire's 49,000).

It's Niklas Backstrom.

Granted Backstrom isn't at the forefront of your mind when you think of "great current NHL goaltenders" but he's earned his way to be mentioned in that argument.

Backstrom has netted the fourth-most wins in the league to this point in the season, as well as posting a shining 2.21 goals-against average and a great .927 save percentage.

Granted Minnesota is just barely hanging on to a playoff spot currently, but 18 of their 19 wins have come on the shoulders of Backstrom. They've also allowed 18 goals in the six games that Backstrom hasn't played in.

The Sharks kept winning with Brian Boucher in net, and despite his wins Miikka Kuprusoff and the Calgary Flames have allowed the most goals of any current playoff contender in the Western Conference.

So as you sit there during the All Star game watching Pittsburgh Penguins, Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, and Anaheim Ducks take the opening faceoff, imagine what it could've been like to see Niklas Backstrom take on Tim Thomas.

Or Mikko Koivu try (and most likely succeed) to get around Mark Streit.

Or what about Zach Parise being levelled by Sheldon Souray?

Not the flashy matchup you'd expect, but sometimes the biggest enjoyment comes from where you'd least expect it.

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and an NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. If you want to get in contact with Bryan you can do so through his profile, and you can also check out all of his previous work in his archives.