Green, Backstrom Among NHL All-Star Snubs

The NHL released the reserves for the Eastern Conference All-Stars at noon, and while congratulations are in order to Alex Ovechkin, rightly named to the team after the starter voting snafu, center Niklas Backstrom (seventh in the conference in scoring, 12-33-45, +6) and defenseman Mike Green (third in conference in scoring for defensemen (10-16-26, +14), despite missing a dozen games) were left off the squad.

Here's the list of reserves announced today:

Forwards: Jeff Carter (C-PHI), Marc Savard (C-BOS), Vincent Lecavalier (C-TB), Eric Staal (C-CAR), Alex Ovechkin (LW-WAS), Dany Heatley (LW-OTT), Ilya Kovalchuk (LW-ATL), Zach Parise (LW-NJ), Thomas Vanek (LW-BUF)

Defense: Jay Bouwmeester (D-FLA), Zdeno Chara (D-BOS), Tomas Kaberle (D-TOR), Mark Streit (D-NYI)

Goalies: Henrik Lundqvist (NYR), Tim Thomas (BOS)

I'm a big proponent of having each team represented in the All-Star game, so I'm not going to cry foul too hard when evaluating these reserve selections.

Phil Kessel (24-16-40, +16), Patrick Elias (18-28-46, +15) and Mike Richards (15-27-42, +16) have just as much beef as Backstrom does about being left off in favor of Staal (18-13-31, +11), Lecavalier (16-18-34, +4) or Heatley (16-20-36, -2).

And the four defensemen named are all worthy of the honor, especially considering three of them are the lone reps from their teams.

It just goes back to the fact that there were two Montreal players voted in-fraudulently, I might add-who simply don't belong.

Alex Kovalev (10-19-29, +8) is a fine player, and a two-time all-star.  But his inclusion this season is a bad joke.  He currently ranks 37th among forwards in the Eastern Conference in scoring.

As for Mike Komisarek?  In just 23 games played, he has recorded one goal and two assists for a plus-one rating.  Really?  At least Komisarek has played this season.  The Penguins fans actually voted Sergei Gonchar on to the starting team, but since he hasn't even suited up yet he's ineligible.

The NHL needs to restrict the number of votes per IP address next season, just like the other leagues that allow fan voting.  Also, putting a captcha (password validation) on the ballot from the start would prevent a scripted program from fraudulently repeating votes.

This is just one more example why hockey gets a black eye in the U.S. as a "major" sport.  The league wants to grow the game, but until they take themselves a little more seriously, why should anyone else?