Girgensons Leading All-Star Fan Voting Exposes Issue

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There is a significant probability Buffalo Sabres center Zemgus Girgensons is going to unintentionally cost another player bonus money.  It’s completely out of his control and that needs to be fixed. 

Zemgus Girgensons is currently leading the NHL All-Star Fan Vote. Somehow that is not a typo.

The Buffalo Sabres center has more votes than Patrick Kane (2nd overall), Sidney Crosby (5th), Mark Giordano (15th), and the current league leader in goals and points, Tyler Seguin (19th?!).  Corey Perry is 74th in voting!

What alternate universe does that happen in?

There is little doubt to any Sabres fan that Girgensons has been one of the few bright spots on a team trudging through yet another season doomed to end with “we did well at the trade deadline”. But lets take a deeper dive into the season to date figures of the ‘Latvian Locomotive’ and how they compare to this seasons elite.

Goals:  8, tied for 57th

Girgensons is producing well on a team that is far and away the worst offensive team in the league. His eight markers are second on the team. They are also the same number of goals scored by Ryan Getzlaf, Claude Giroux, and Taylor Hall. The best All-Star vote showing of these three is Giroux at 51st.

Total Points: 14, tied for 143rd

Girgensons again is second on the Sabres in total points, only trailing Tyler Ennis by a pair of points.  But his awful comparative results are clearly being ignored by a passionate fan base.  Would you think of voting in players currently tied with Girgensons?  Such as offensive juggernaut Nino Niederreiter? Or defenseman Roman Josi?  Thomas Vanek is good for this too.  That’s fun to consider, right Sabres fans?

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Girgensons deserves recognition for the two-way game he is developing.  He is flashing his offensive upside while maintaining responsibility in his own zone.  As evidence of that he is a +3 on a team with the worst goal differential in the league.  But giving Girgensons so much credit for his defense in a game that is allergic to it is asking a lot.

This isn’t saying he doesn’t deserve to go. Girgensons has been the most complete Sabre this season and it’s still difficult to determine where his ceiling is. He could easily wind up with 20 goals, 55 points and exceed both next year if he continues his trajectory. He is the most deserving Sabre for consideration (honorable mention to Tyler Ennis). But to say he should be LEADING THE VOTING? That tells me that fans shouldn’t be voting. Period.

The Latvian fans likely have a great deal to do with it, as pointed out here. When you get an entire country behind you, particularly one where your player helped lead a surprising Olympic run and put quite the scare into Canada of all teams, momentum will be with you.

But players frequently will have incentives worked into contracts which can include production thresholds and All-Star Game appearances. To think that the fans can stuff the ballot box and cause a potentially deserving player to be left off and lose incentive pay is concerning. I wouldn’t want to be person dealing with the player that lost out on $50K because of the fan vote.

And the top six vote getters (3 forwards, 2 defensemen, 1 goalie) are guaranteed spots in the game. That’s the problem with Girgensons leading the vote. Maybe he goes without the fan vote, maybe he doesn’t. But if he is GUARANTEED a spot that becomes one less spot for a player on the fringe to make it because you know the forward that is fourth in voting (Crosby) is getting in.

You want your most deserving players to play in the game, exhibition or not. And if they earn it, the player should be compensated appropriately for it. And the players most likely affected aren’t the elite players, which means the bonus money would hold a lot more meaning since they are playing on a monster contract like the elite players. Makes you wonder how the NHLPA feels about this. They represent all players, right?

The game may be a glorified skills competition, but the fans shouldn’t be able to influence compensation. It’s time to find another way to get them involved with the game.