Matt Duchene Chosen For First All-Star Game

You may have heard about the upcoming All-Star Game in Raleigh on Sunday, January 30th.  What you may not have heard as yet is that our very own Matt Duchene was chosen as on of the 36 All-Stars picked to fill out the roster after all the guys from last year's popularity contest Stanley Cup teams were chosen by the fans.  This is Duchene's first All-Star selection in what we hope will become an annual selection.  He joins 20 other first-time All-Stars for this year's game. 

Duchene is the lone representative of your Colorado Avalanche (except for Kevin Shattenkirk making the Rookie Squad for the SuperSkills competition), which I thought was somewhat surprising considering John-Michael Liles', Paul Stastny's, Milan Hejduk's, and Chris Stewart's respective play this season.  Oh well, guess they didn't have room what with a third of the Penguins taking up the roster and most of the talent left in Chicago. Sure glad the found room for Erik Karlsson and his -11 though.  He'll have company representing the negative club with Patrik Elias (-11, 9 G, 21 A) who was much more deserving than SoS, Duke or CGDS, right?

The format for this year's extravaganza is a little different.  Captains will be chosen and then those two players will pick teams just like your classic drop-in or pickup game.  This draft will be televised live on VERSUS at 8 p.m. eastern on the 28th.  Tune in to see which of the roster of skilled players Dutchy will be playing with.

For more information follow the link above as it does a much better job of explaining the overly-complicated rules for the draft and the SuperSkills competition.  Rumor has it that the goalies will be skating in the Fastest Skater competition (in full gear of course) and could compete in a Shot Accuracy-like competition as well. 

Hat tip to Aph for the quick post earlier.