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All-Star Voting update: Evgeni Malkin creeps into the top three forwards

genosmiles

James O’Brien

Since November 15th, hockey fans have had their chance to vote for starters for the 2011 NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina. We’ll give you the occasional voting update, as fans have until January 3, 2011 to select six players (three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie) who will act as something of a fans’ First All-NHL Team.

As you can see from the results, the starting lineup of the All-Star game won’t make anyone who hates the Pittsburgh Penguins very happy. That being said, the fans have spoken their mind in the form of write-in votes, too.

Let’s take a look at the top 10 in fan votes among forwards (the top three are highlighted to represent who would make it if the voting ended today, while write-in candidates include an asterisk).

(Note: all voting information comes via NHL.com.)

malkinjoinstopthreeasgvoting

James O’Brien

The only new player among any of the top six is Evgeni Malkin, who holds a few more than 4,000 votes over Steve Stamkos. While Malkin is a high-end talent, I think Stamkos is more deserving this year.

With all due respect to Michael Cammalleri, it’s shocking to see him front of Alex Ovechkin, who only came in seventh place up to this point. Get it together, Capitals fans.

Here are the top five defensemen in the voting, with the two would-be first team guys highlighted.

letangandkeithstilltop2dinasg

James O’Brien

As you can see, the hierarchy hasn’t changed in the last week. Dustin Byfuglien (ninth place and 133,885 votes) and John-Michael Liles (25th place and 35,165 votes) deserved better.

Finally, here is the highlighted top goalie as well as the top six (the sixth spot was competitive enough with fifth-place Jaroslav Halak that I felt it was worthy of a mention).

pricecareytopsasgagain

James O’Brien

Carey Price has a pretty strong lead and it looks like only Marc-Andre Fleury and Sergei Bobrovsky have a prayer of passing him. Tim Thomas is the biggest snub of this group, as he’s likely the leader in the Vezina Trophy race right now.

So, there you go. The starters would look like this if results stayed the same:

Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Malkin

Defense: Kris Letang and Duncan Keith

Goalie: Price

If you want to impact the voting, click here to do so.