Luongo's Out, So Ozzie's Gotta Be In, Right?
We'll find out who the Western Conference reserves are Thursday at noon, but I have to imagine Roberto Luongo's decision to skip the All-Star Game in Atlanta makes Osgood (19-2-1 with a league-best GAA and save percentage) a good bet to go now, if he wasn't already. Figure it's Leclaire, Nabokov and Osgood in goal, while Kipprusoff (22 wins) stays home? (Turco was hilarious while miked during last year's game, but he's not deserving this year and the game's not in Dallas. Giguere's the reigning Cup winner and a great guy, but also not deserving.)
The starters are Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Iginla, Lidstrom, Phaneuf and now Pascal Leclaire if you go by the fan voting for Luongo's replacement. With that said, here's one scenario with the reserves -- off the top of my head and hardly a projection, mind you -- that fills the requirement of representing every team:
FORWARDS (9): Getzlaf, Thornton, Stastny, Horcoff, Kariya, Gaborik, Kane, Sedin, Arnott
DEFENSEMEN (4): Zubov, Pronger, Visnovsky, Jovanovski
GOALIES (2): Nabokov, Osgood
You could probably swap forward/defenseman with Nashville and the hapless Kings, I guess. (Kopitar/Brown? Hamhuis/Zidlicky?) But we'll see.
