Jimmy Howard To Be Red Wings Representative at the All-Star Game

This afternoon, the NHL revealed the rosters for the 2019 All-Star Game and Jimmy Howard will be the Detroit Red Wings representative.

The two day Skills Competition and 3-on-3 tournament is taking place in San Jose on January 25th and 26th this year. The tournament collects the All-Stars of each division into a 10 man unit and pits them against each other. Each roster must be composed of six forwards, two defensemen and two goaltenders. Every team must have at least one representative present. Here is the team that was assembled for the Atlantic Division:

The Atlantic Division is heavy on fire power when you consider that Mitch Marner, Brayden Point and Aleksander Barkov did not make this team, but it’s a tough puzzle to put together when you want to showcase the NHL’s super stars and feature a representative from every team.

If you ask me, Dylan Larkin should be the Red Wings representative. He’s been a more exciting player with far more star power than Jimmy Howard, but it’s hard to make an argument for him against all of the other forwards that were selected and even those that weren’t.

I’m also concerned about Jimmy Howard’s exhaustion level and injury history. A goalie like him would seriously benefit from having over a week of rest.

Star players highlighting other divisions are Sidney Crosby and Sebastian Aho in the Metropolitan Division, Patrick Kane and Nathan MacKinnon in the Central Division, and Connor McDavid and Elias Pettersson in the Pacific Division. These rosters could still be very fluid as injuries might affect them. Alex Ovechkin has already opted out of appearing. Full rosters can be seen here.

There is still one more player to be announced per division, which will be decided via fan vote.