With two weeks of All-Star voting in the books, we are quickly getting a good idea of which players will be attending the 2012 All-Star Game in Ottawa and which players will be left at home.
The NHL released their second voting update today, giving us plenty of material to analyze.
Top-15 Forwards
| ANK | TEAM | PLAYER | VOTES |
| * Write-in candidate | |||
| 1. |  |
Phil Kessel | 258,446 |
| 2. |  |
Daniel Alfredsson | 233,868 |
| 3. | |
Jason Spezza | 209,455 |
| 4. |  |
Sidney Crosby | 206,863 |
| 5. | |
Milan Michalek | 190,670 |
| 6. | |
Joffrey Lupul | 166,787 |
| 7. |  |
Claude Giroux | 151,001 |
| 8. |  |
Jonathan Toews | 137,387 |
| 9. | |
Jaromir Jagr | 126,250 |
| 10. | |
Patrick Kane | 120,439 |
| 11. | |
Evgeni Malkin | 110,576 |
| 12. |  |
Pavel Datsyuk | 98,415 |
| 13. | |
Marian Hossa | 95,781 |
| 14. | |
James Neal | 95,454 |
| 15. |  |
Alex Ovechkin | 88,222 |
Phil Kessel not only leads all forwards in total votes, but also leads the entire league in total votes received with 258,446. Kessel is certainly deserving given his 31 points which lead the NHL heading into Tuesday’s action.
Scan the rest of the list and you’ll see that to date, the Eastern Conference has done a much better job of mobilizing their vote than the Western Conference has, save Chicago. Also worth noticing is that despite having a pretty disappointing season so far, Alex Ovechkin’s name recognition has been enough to place him 15th at the forward position.
While he’s not included in the top-15, coming in at 22nd with 68,107 votes is Tyler Seguin, a write-in candidate. It’d be nice to see Seguin end up making the All-Star squad as it was a pretty glaring oversight to leave him off the actual ballot.
Top-15 Defenseman
| RANK | TEAM | PLAYER | VOTES |
|
* Write-in candidate |
|||
| 1. | |
Erik Karlsson | 256,839 |
| 2. | |
Dion Phaneuf | 213,617 |
| 3. | |
Kris Letang | 195,528 |
| 4. |  |
Zdeno Chara | 184,457 |
| 5. | |
Nicklas Lidstrom | 169,218 |
| 6. | |
Sergei Gonchar | 153,874 |
| 7. | |
Duncan Keith | 135,049 |
| 8. | |
John-Michael Liles | 133,379 |
| 9. |  |
Shea Weber | 114,063 |
| 10. | |
Brent Seabrook | 108,723 |
| 11. | |
Chris Pronger | 100,076 |
| 12. |  |
P.K. Subban | 93,427 |
| 13. | |
Kimmo Timonen | 91,273 |
| 14. |  |
Alexander Edler | 80,538 |
| 15. |  |
Dan Boyle | 61,823 |
Young Erik Karlsson continues to lead the way from the blueline, with 20 assists through 23 games. Familiar names such as Letang, Chara and Lidstrom round out the top-5. Chris Pronger currently is 11th with just over 100,000 votes, but that number will likely trail off as he will miss significant time with knee surgery.
Top-15 Goaltenders
| RANK | TEAM | PLAYER | VOTES |
| * Write-in candidate | |||
| 1. | |
Tim Thomas | 175,315 |
| 2. | |
Marc-Andre Fleury | 169,721 |
| 3. | |
James Reimer | 161,405 |
| 4. | |
Pekka Rinne | 101,570 |
| 5. | |
Carey Price | 93,637 |
| 6. |  |
Henrik Lundqvist | 92,808 |
| 7. | |
Ilya Bryzgalov | 84,498 |
| 8. |  |
Nikolai Khabibulin | 79,126 |
| 9. | |
Roberto Luongo | 67,719 |
| 10. |  |
Jonathan Quick | 56,654 |
| 11. |  |
Kari Lehtonen | 55,956 |
| 12. | |
* Corey Crawford | 53,604 |
| 13. |  |
Ryan Miller | 45,768 |
| 14. | |
* Jimmy Howard | 44,610 |
| 15. |  |
Martin Brodeur | 39,899 |
Tim Thomas leads all goaltenders with just over 175,000 votes, followed by Marc-Andre Fleury and … James Reimer? Despite being sidelined with concussion-like symptoms, Reimer finds himself 3rd in total voting with just six games played this year. As we’ve seen time and time again, fans will vote for the guys they know/like and not base their votes on actual performances – or even on whether the guy is playing or not.
As noted, two goaltenders, Corey Crawford and Jimmy Howard, are receiving a ton of votes despite not being listed on the ballot. A pretty big blunder by the NHL to leave Howard and Crawford off the ballot, it’s great to see fans giving credit where credit is due.
One name that is missing from this list is Brian Elliott. His name is nowhere to be found in this recent update from the NHL which is a shame given his start to the year that is leading the NHL in numerous categories (GAA and save percentage, as of the date of this article). Unfortunately, fantastic numbers aside, it’s no shocker that Elliott is nowhere to be found as not only was he not on the ballot but his success has truly come out of thin air.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on all the All-Star ballot results as we creep closer to the actual game. Stay tuned.
