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All-Star winning captain Nicklas Lidstrom proud of his game and his team

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When Eric Staal and Nicklas Lidstrom were picked to be the captains of the all-star teams for the game this year their tasks were both tricky and seemingly simple. After all having to choose from a host of elite-level players isn’t really that hard to do. Picking the right combo to get his side a win is a bit more difficult though.

For Lidstrom, he’s happy for his team to get an 11-10 win over Team Staal and have fun while doing it.

“There’s no pressure really, it’s more fun than anything. It’s an honor to have my name to the team. I think we were all just having fun with it,” Lidstrom said. “They got one on us in the skills competition last night so we got our revenge today in winning.”

Lidstrom finished the game with a +7 rating and helped get his team get all the way back from a 4-0 hole in the first period hitting Matt Duchene with a beauty of a lead pass to spring him on a breakaway goal to tie the game at four.

“I had some time coming up the ice with the puck and I was just waiting for Matt to find an opening and cut across. He such a great skater I just had to let him get his speed up to get free.”

As for what Lidstrom thinks of the format with the draft, count him in as a big fan of the event and one that has more of a flare to it than the traditional East vs. West format. Getting to pick sides the way they did makes for a huge selling point for even the players.

“I think it made it a more exciting weekend. Everyone was anticipating the draft and what’s going to happen, who’s going to get picked first, who’s going to get picked last. Everything around the draft it created a lot of hype for it and I think the league liked that and the NHLPA did too.”

With Lidstrom being a 40 year-old veteran of the league, he knows that these kinds of events have more of a special meaning to him now and is moved to be seen as a leader in this game.

“I feel honored to be one of those players that’s been in the league a long time. I was very honored to be picked to be a captain for this weekend.”

Fans in Detroit might be used to these sorts of things from Lidstrom after 19 seasons, but for a day, fans across the NHL got a chance to see what it’s like to have him as a leader for a team. Turns out he might not make so bad of a general manager one day. I wonder what Steve Yzerman might think of that.