Hockey East announced its All-Star teams today, and while these things usually don’t bother me, I have to admit I was more than a little surprised to see that Merrimack didn’t place a single player on any of the three league All-Star teams.
For context, the awards are voted on by the league’s coaches. Earlier this week, Justin Gill and Parker Lalonde were named to the All-Rookie Team. Only Providence goaltender Jack Parsons was a unanimous selection.
Lalonde, meanwhile, is the leading rookie scorer in the league. He sits fourth overall in Hockey East in total points — among all players, not just freshmen. And at least one voter left him off their ballot for the All-Rookie Team?
I’m sorry, but that’s inexcusable. At best, it suggests the process wasn’t taken seriously. At worst, it hints at some sort of grudge against Lalonde or the Warriors.
He was on the team, so ultimately received the honor, but the fact that someone left the leading rookie scorer off their ballot completely is mind-boggling.
The league released the Hockey East All-Stars today, and it was jarring to see Merrimack shut out entirely. Nineteen players were honored across the three teams — and not one Warrior made the list.
And I’m not the only one who noticed.
“I say this recognizing that there are several players not named that are very good, and those named are outstanding players,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek said Friday. “That said, it is disappointing that Merrimack was not recognized on any of the teams. We have more than one who should have been. I don’t want to get into specifics, but the fourth-leading scorer in the league, and the only freshman in the top 10, and he is not a unanimous All-Rookie selection and left off all-star teams?
“Our goaltender plays the most minutes in the league, leads the league in saves, and he’s not recognized? I’m just one guy, but I think this is disappointing and even disrespectful.”
Let’s walk through it for a moment. I’ll list the All-Star forwards — and then the Merrimack players who, at the very least, had a case to be included, and where they rank among the selected players.
The Warriors had three forwards ranked inside the top 10 in points per game in league play, and none of them were selected among the 10 best forwards in Hockey East? That’s difficult to square.
Gill finished tied for third in the league with 12 goals — and he did it in fewer games than Dean Letourneau. On a goals-per-game basis, he ranked second in the league, trailing only Josh Nadeau and finishing ahead of James Hagens.
I don’t think I’m particularly biased about these things. If anything, I try to be fair — almost to a fault. I cover the sport nationally in addition to Merrimack, so I make a conscious effort to keep my perspective balanced.
But when you see a gap like this between performance and recognition, it’s hard to make sense of it.
Now, for the goalies. Personally, I would have had Max Lundgren among the three goaltenders selected.
From a purely statistical standpoint, I can understand how someone focusing strictly on save percentage might rank Michael Hrabal, Lawton Zacher, and Tyler Muszelik as the top three in that category — Lundgren finished fourth. But context matters. Lundgren logged more than 500 additional minutes than Hrabal and nearly 300 more than both Zacher and Muszelik.
And that raises another question.
If statistics didn’t seem to matter when it came to evaluating the forwards, why did they suddenly become the deciding factor when it came to the goaltenders?
You can also examine save percentage relative to workload. Lundgren posted a .913 save percentage while facing an enormous volume of shots, finishing with 1,002 saves — the most in the league. The other three goaltenders were all below 900 in that same context.
Personally, Lundgren would have absolutely been in my top three. In fact, I currently have him ranked as the top free-agent goaltender available to NHL teams. There’s at least a sliver of justification here — even if I disagree with it — but it’s still a bit curious that the numbers appeared to matter at this position, while seemingly carrying far less weight at others.
The league doesn’t release individual ballots, so we’ll never know exactly how the votes broke down. But it’s difficult to reconcile a scenario where voters (i.e. coaches) selected those three goaltenders — and at the same time left all three of Merrimack’s forwards off the ballot entirely.