The Toronto Maple Leafs forward elected to skate after missing practice on Wednesday. There’s no doubt that Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner was deserving of his second-ever NHL All-Star nod. The player was selected by the NHL to be among the first of 32 players named to the NHL All-Star Game to be held in South Florida next month. "It’s extremely well deserved," Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said. "I think we have a couple of guys in here who could easily be all-stars every year." [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJgqBdMRL4[/embed] The NHL has long held a rule of making sure every single franchise is represented at the annual (at least sometimes annual) event. The rule forces the league to select some players that may not be deserving over others based on merit alone. In 2016, the NHL changed the format of the event to a 3-on-3 tournament involving four division-based teams. This season, the league brought back a fan-voting element, allowing for two skaters and one goaltender to be added to the four divisional teams. Auston Matthews is almost a lock to be in the All-Star Game given his popularity both among the Maple Leafs fan base and in the United States, being from Scottsdale, Arizona and he's taken part in every All-Star Game he's been eligible for. But he's had a bit of a down year (by his standards of course) with 19 goals and 45 points in 39 games. Both Matthews and William Nylander lead the team in points, but Nylander has enjoyed a breakout year by leading the team with 22 goals. "When you’ve had success in the early portion of the season as we have had in the first half, there’s a lot of players that can get recognition, of course," Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe explained. Given the restricted nature of the all-star format, it's unlikely (although not impossible) for both Matthews and Nylander to get in. "It wouldn’t just be us, there’s a lot of teams that would probably feel the same way," Keefe added. The format is what it is but fans will have to say." Long before the NHL switched to the 3-on-3 tournament format, the league has been insistent on equal representation. In 2016, Leo Komarov was the lone Maple Leafs participant team that finished 30th in the standings and they likely would have been fine with Komarov not going. In 1999, Wendel Clark made it to the NHL All-Star game. He had 28 goals in 65 games, which was a great achievement so late in his NHL career, but he represented an awful Tampa Bay Lightning franchise that had nobody else deserving of the honor. The league needed to either A) expand the pool of NHL All-Stars if they are insistent on representation from all 32 teams or B) get rid of the rule altogether. The NHL has parity thanks to the hard salary cap, among other things, that if one team is under-represented one year, there is a good chance they will be overrepresented the next to compensate. With the Olympics and potential World Cups eventually replacing the NHL All-Star Game on the calendar in the future, the bi-annual NHL All-Star game should really feature the best players if it wants to be taken seriously. "I think most guys will tell you that it’s not important or that it is what it is and that they are just trying to play the team game," Rielly said. "That being said, I think there are guys that deserved to be acknowledged. They might miss that opportunity because of the format but hopefully, their teammates are there to pick them up anyway."
