Blackhawks Notes: All-Star Voting Updates and Khabibulin's Possible Return

All-Star Balloting Updates

I happened to be perusing the Internet today, and I noticed that the Chicago Blackhawks’ All-Star nominees are quickly climbing the charts!

Patrick Kane is currently running in fifth place among forwards with 234,852 votes, which is less than 20,000 votes behind fourth place Henrik Zetterberg, and less than 30,000 behind third place Pavel Datsyuk. If Kaner can get into the top three, he will start the All-Star Game in Montreal!

Jonathan Toews has also been making strides toward the upper echelon, with 178,084 votes, which is good for sixth place in the West. He may not have as much of a chance as Patrick Kane, but it appeared a few weeks ago that Kane wasn’t going to be able to break out of fifth place, but he’s slowly gaining ground.

The third Blackhawk on the All-Star Ballot, Brian Campbell, is a very respectable third place among defensemen with 188,590 votes. He is a far cry, however, from the second place player, Dion Phaneuf. He currently sits about 138,000 votes behind Phaneuf, and nearly 200,000 votes behind first place Nicklas Lidstrom.

In terms of write-ins, the Blackhawks are showing relatively decent returns.

Patrick Sharp, a man who most hockey fans can agree should be on the ballot, is currently at 15,028 votes. Adam Burish is sitting at 191 votes, a total that I thought with his popularity in the city would be much higher. Duncan Keith, an All-Star from last season who was left off the ballot this year, has 12,034 votes.

Other players are receiving less write-in support than Mr. Sharp and Mr. Keith. Martin Havlat currently stands at 3299 votes, and Kris Versteeg, a name being mentioned in some circles for Calder Trophy, has 1743 votes.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel are guys like Colin Fraser, who has 54 votes, and Ben Eager, who stands at 70 votes. Troy Brouwer stands at 54 votes, and Dave Bolland has only 66.

In terms of the rest of the league, the starting line-ups for the two conferences would still be dominated by Detroit and Montreal players with less than three weeks to go until balloting ends on January 2nd.

Detroit’s reps for the game would include Marian Hossa, Pavel Datsyuk, and Nicklas Lidstrom if voting ended today. The other three Western starters would be Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf, and in goal would be Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.

For Montreal, they would have starters in Saku Koivu, Andrei Markov, Mike Komisarek, and Carey Price. The other two starters would be Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, who are riding a huge wave of momentum, as at this time last week all six Eastern starters were slotted to be Canadiens.

I encourage all of you to vote for the NHL All-Star Game as many times as possible, as there is a 1,000 vote limit per day. So vote early, and vote often!

Blackhawks Appearances

• Kris Versteeg and Brian Campbell will be signing autographs this Saturday at HawkQuarters in Chicago from 2-4pm.

• Patrick Sharp will be signing autographs at Grant’s Appliances in Aurora on Saturday from 3:30-5:30pm.

• Bobby Hull will be signing copies of the new book “One Goal: Chicago’s Resurgent Blackhawks” on Saturday at Borders in Oak Brook from 2-3:30pm.

Other Random Notes:

Cristobal Huet will start his sixth consecutive game in goal for the Blackhawks on Wednesday night against the Ottawa Senators. Nikolai Khabibulin will likely get the start against the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night.

The Hawks also put Adam Burish on IR and recalled Pascal Pelletier from Rockford. He was leading the Ice Hogs in scoring, with 21 points in 23 games so far this season in Rockford.