They have wrapped up the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft. Rosters are now all filled out and all that’s left is to see these men spend the next two days playing inspired hockey that will no doubt capture the imagination of sports fans worldwide at half to maybe at most three-quarters pace so as to not hurt themselves before the real intense hockey starts next week.
Richards went the moment all six goalies needed to be picked and it seems predictably it was Lidstrom teammate Martin St. Louis that lobbied to bring Richards into the team as he quipped “I just sent him a text message and he agreed to go to wing.” Loui however wasn’t quite as in demand being the league-wide underrated talent he is as he waited until the second last round of the draft before being picked by fellow countryman Nick Lidstrom.
This makes things easy for Dallas fans as it’s clear we will (or at least should) be throwing our support behind the Blue team.
Overall the whole draft presentation and execution wasn’t too bad save for the likes of “famed” hockey analyst Pierre McGuire taking it way too seriously. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing something like this draft format carry on in the future for the NHL as it’s bound to be better and have more polish over the years. As the case seems to be with most “first times” it felt a little awkward and we’ll probably look back at it with a little red faced embarrassment.
After the jump, we go over both rosters in the order they were picked… Don’t forget that tomorrow night for the skills competition and Sunday afternoon during the actual game we here at Defending Big D will have live game day threads for everyone to chat away and share in, so be sure to join us!