First Star, Worst Star: January 17th, 2016

Only 16 more sleeps until McDavid comes back! As the song says, the waiting is the hardest part, so for now I give you this weeks First Star, Worst Star to try and distract you for a bit and make the wait go by just that much quicker. 

It may not be Powerball type money, but Cam Talbot still cashed in pretty well this week, signing a 3 year, $12 million extension. I’m a fan of this signing. I liked Cam Talbot while he was a Ranger, so I was very excited when one of Peter Chiarelli’s first moves as Oilers GM was acquiring the netminder for a handful of later round picks. He’s had his ups and downs this season, but he’s been on fire lately, making A LOT of huge saves like this one last night on TJ Brodie. 

He’s 3-2-1 so far in 2016, stealing all three of those wins for an Oilers team that has been struggling lately. The jury is still out as to whether or not this play is indicative of his true talent level, or if he’s just riding a solid hot streak. But even if he falls back down to earth a bit and puts up more average numbers it’ll still be an upgrade on the Oilers goaltenders of recent seasons. And with Laurent Brossoit ready to break out any day now we’re theoretically looking at the Oilers finally solving their goaltending woes heading into the McDavid era. 

This signing is a gamble by Chiarelli but I think it’s a safe bet, and will pay dividends during the entire three years of the contract. Settle in Cam, you’re not getting rid of us for a while! 

The NHL could not have handled this John Scott all star game thing any worse than they have. Firstly their own fan voting system is now rendered moot by the fact that the number one vote getter isn’t even playing in the game. Secondly whatever interest people had in this years edition of the game is now gone, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who are now not going to watch purely out of spite. And worst of all John Scott undeservedly gets jerked around for no other reason than the NHL continuing its tradition of doing the exact opposite of what the fans want.  

Reports say that both the Coyotes and the NHL asked Scott to bow out of the game, lest the league that thought this was a good idea be embarrassed by people having too much fun during their Corporate Super Best Friends weekend. John Scott is by no means an NHL all star, and his fan voting push definitely started out with a mocking tone, but Scott took everything in stride and turned it into something a majority of hockey fans were having a lot of fun with. He even got these hilarious shirts made to give to all his teammates. 

But it’s all for nothing now. John Scott misses out on a once in a lifetime opportunity, the fans miss out on any kind of intrigue the game had up until Friday, and the NHL misses out on a chance to not look like a soulless corporate entity that has the opposite of paying fans interest in mind. 

There’s still time for the NHL to do the right thing and fix this mess. I won’t be holding my breath though. 

#FreeJohnScott