Eastern All-Stars, Jordan Staal Update

By: Jeff Little • January 8th, 2009

The Eastern Conference All-Star Team, aka Montreal Canadiens, was filled out today. Here is the complete roster: (* denotes fan-selected starters)

Forwards
Evgeni Malkin — Pittsburgh*
Sidney Crosby — Pittsburgh*
Alex Kovalev — Montreal*
Jeff Carter — Philadelphia
Danny Heatley — Ottawa
Ilya Kovalchuk — Atlanta
Alexander Ovechkin — Washington
Zach Parise — New Jersey
Marc Savard — Boston
Eric Staal — Carolina
Thomas Vanek — Buffalo
Vincent LeCavalier — Tampa Bay

Defense
Andrei Markov — Montreal*
Mike Komisarek — Montreal*
Jay Bouwmeester — Florida
Zdeno Chara — Boston
Thomas Kaberle — Toronto
Mark Streit — New York Islanders

Goal
Carey Price — Montreal*
Henrik Lundqvist — New York Rangers
Tim Thomas — Boston

I’m fatigued from railing about the absolutely awful selection process and results for the NHL All Star Game, so I will leave the assault up to you intrepid readers. Go for it!

In other new, Pittsburgh has signed Jordan Stall to a 4-year contract extension, beginning next year. A $16 million package over the term.

Two ways to interpret this news — either the Penguins are committed to Staal for the long term, and have made this splash now to signal that he is off the market, or potential trading partners were balking at doing a deal for Staal in the last year of his contract, and locking him up removes that obstacle. It should become clear soon which is the case.

More to come later . . .

About

author photo

A native of the SF Bay Area, my first exposure to hockey was the SF/Oakland/California Golden Seals, including Charlie Finley and the white skates. Fast forward to the late 1980's when Gretzky and the Kings came up to the Bay Area for an exhibition game at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, for which we had glass seats. I was at the first San Jose Sharks game in the Cow Palace, and followed them for their first few pathetic years, before moving to Columbus in 1994. I attended the first pro-NHL rally downtown, and have been a season ticket holder since Day 1, wife & I are active in the Jacket Backers, and son is an avid fan as well. I cover the Jackets for Inside Hockey, and contribute regularly to a variety of hockey sites. I maintain contact with the Jackets organization, and like to dig into stories, bringing a fresh, and sometimes irreverent perspective to hockey.

See All Posts by This Author

There Are 2 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Rob P on 8 January 2009:

    Vinny Lecavalier from Tampa Bay was also named to the Eastern team.

  2. Comment by JAL on 9 January 2009:

    Thanks, Rob. Not only is my eyesight bad, I can’t count! Fixed now!

Post a Response