Last Day Before All-Star Break Odds and Ends

Just one day before heading into the All-Star break the All-Star game replacements have been announced, a certain scoring legend turns 50, and oh yeah, there are 18 teams in action tonight.  

All-Star Replacements:

The remaining of the All-Star replacements have been named.  They will take part in the draft on Friday, the Super Skills Competition Saturday, and the actual game on Sunday. 

The Replacements for the game are as follows:

-Paul Stastny (replacing Sidney Crosby)

-Jeff Skinner (replacing Evgeni Malkin)

-Keith Yandle (replacing Tobias Enstrom)

-Martin Havlat (replacing Ales Hemsky)

-Danny Briere (replacing Jarome Iginla)

The Replacements for the Super Skills Competition are as follows:

-P.K. Subban (replacing Jordan Eberle)

-Jamie McBain (replacing Jeff Skinner)

To avoid confusion, Skinner was originally selected to take part in the skills competition because he was a rookie, but after some consideration he was chosen to replace Malkin in the actual game. 

Pre-All-Star Game Season Recap:

Lets keep this simple.

-Philadelphia, Boston, Tampa Bay, Detroit, Vancouver, and Dallas all lead their respective divisions.

-Pittsburgh is better than half of them (4th in the league).

-The Devils have won 4 in a row, but are still the worst team in the league.

-Theres a bunch of other terrible teams too.  

-Steven Stamkos is too good. Leading the league in goals with 38 and points with 67 in only 51 games.

-Fortunately for Stamkos, Sidney Crosby is hurt or he would be leading both categories.  Crosby has 32 goals and 66 points in 41 games.

-Hendrik Sedin likes to pass. 50 assists in 49 games to lead the league.

-Tim Thomas leads all major goalie categories except wins.  (25 wins, 1.84 GAA, .945 SV%, and 7 shutouts.)

-Ovechkin sucked for a long time, but is finally getting his act together.

-Kris Letang, Dustin Byfuglien, Claude Giroux, among others have all had outstanding breakout campaigns.

-Ilya Kovalchuk...

...boy is he having a terrible season.  After signing a 15 year, $100 Million Dollar Contract, he only has 14 goals and 29 points in 47 games. David Jones has more goals and he's only making $825,000.  New Jersey is doomed for a long time.

That about covers everything which leaves us left with one more topic.  Wayne Gretzky turned 50 today.

Happy Birthday. Lemieux is better.