EHE All Stars find their way to San Jose 2019-03-11 The city of San Jose, California continued its trend of poorly promoting local major sporting events in the area by waiting until Monday morning to announce who will be participating in the 2019 Elite Hockey Experience All-Star festivities. Two of the league's most diligent general managers in Tony Chiu of the New York Islanders and Joe Tremblay of the Winnipeg Jets will lead their respective groups of superstars and fan favorites in the 4th annual EHE All-Star Game, with a million dollar prize and a brand new (Matchbox) truck on the line. The main attractions begin tonight with the All-Star Skills Competition at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. ET at SAP Center with all players involved, except Nashville Predators center Sidney Crosby, who is too sicky wicky and withdrew from first-night action. Someone needs to find him a bottle of warm milk. Then Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. ET, the familiar likes of Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos, Patrice Bergeron, and goal-scoring leader Jamie Benn will be joined by first-year selections Auston Matthews, Aleksander Barkov, and John Gibson wearing recycled garbage jerseys (literally) in a half-assed display of hockey that is still 347% better than what any of us can actually accomplish on the ice. Two members of the San Jose Sharks will represent their hometown team in perennial All-Star goaltender/police officer Sergei Bobrovsky and defenseman Jared Spurgeon. There will be a changing of the guard on the back end, with the two all-time leading scorers among defenseman, Erik Karlsson and Mark Giordano, plus Brent Burns (4th) being left off the list of selections. In their stead, Alex Pietrangelo from the Tampa Bay Lightning will finally will make his first All-Star appearance after years of snubs. "It's about time for my team to not nominate every other defenseman except me!" Pietrangelo snarked in an interview two weeks ago. This year's game is also lacking its usual headscratcher selection that have entered previous games, such as John Scott, Andrew Hammond, and Mark Fayne. Minnesota Wild forward William Karlsson would normally fit that mold in any other year. However, the 26-year-old Swede has dropped the jaws of many. Karlsson is for third in league points with 64 at the All-Star Break, after amassing only 48 in the previous four years that also saw him play a full second professional season in the minors. Last year's reigning most-valuable-player, Nikita Kucherov, will represent the Detroit Red Wings as an emergency replacement for Leon Draisaitl, who was injured on Sunday night and unable to participate. Kucherov is finding himself back in elite form after a four-goal performance on February 27 and followed it up with seven points in four games last week to earn EHE 3rd Star of the Week honors. Fans from all around the world will be excited to see the players arrive in San Jose this morning, after spending the weekend to the glitz and glamour of an NCAA Bowl Championship Game that took place more than two months ago. Aside from a couple of banners hanging from SAP Center, the city was void of anything commemorating the week's events. "If I didn't see all the other fans around who were as bewildered as I was, I'd have wondered if it was even this week or in this city" said Michael Patrick, a hockey fan who traveled from the province of Ontario to meet his favorite EHE All Stars. Rumors swirled that the lack of local awareness of the events being held was all a deliberate ruse to coerce Dallas Stars' All-Star forward Alex Ovechkin, who is purportedly allergic to All-Star buzz, into attending what he thought was an entirely different extravaganza. "This isn't fair," Ovechkin complained. "I thought I was coming to see my alma mater, Alabama, play in the championship game tomorrow. I've been duped. Go Tide!" The teams have been selected as follows: TEAM TREMBLAY TEAM CHIU F - Auston Matthews - BUF F - Nathan MacKinnon - NYI F - Connor McDavid - NSH F - Evgeni Malkin - OTT F - Logan Couture - WPG F - Alex Ovechkin - DAL F - Sidney Crosby - NSH F - Mat Barzal - NJ F - Patrick Kane - BOS F - Aleksander Barkov - TOR F - Nikita Kucherov* - DET F - Claude Giroux - AZ F - Jamie Benn - PIT F - John Tavares - COL F - Steven Stamkos - LA F - Patrice Bergeron - EDM F - Jonathan Toews - CHI F - Gabriel Landeskog - PHI F - Evgeny Kuznetsov - CBJ F - William Karlsson - MIN F - Anze Kopitar - WSH F - Bo Horvat - PIT F - Eric Staal - MIN F - Nikolaj Ehlers - ANA D - Drew Doughty - MTL D - Victor Hedman - BOS D - Kris Letang - VGK D - Roman Josi - DAL D - John Carlson - NYR D - Morgan Rielly - FLA D - Rasmus Ristolainen - WSH D - Alex Pietrangelo - TB D - Marc-Edouard Vlasic - STL D - Jared Spurgeon - SJ D - Shayne Gostisbehere - EDM D - Jaccob Slavin - CGY G - Connor Hellebuyck - DET G - John Gibson - CAR G - Sergei Bobrovsky- SJ G - Roberto Luongo - TB G - Jonathan Quick - AZ G - Cory Schneider - VAN * Replaced Leon Draisaitl (injured)