CROSBY, MALKIN, CHASE ALL-STAR VOTING RECORD

Montreal Canadiens fans appeared to be stuffing the ballot box early, but now Penguins fans have taken over.  In fact, Pittsburgh stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are both threatening to break Jaromir Jagr’s all-time record for the most votes received in one year of NHL All-Star fan balloting.

On Tuesday morning, Crosby and Malkin were running 1-2 among Eastern Conference forwards in the XM NHL® All-Star Fan Balloting presented by 2K Sports that will select the starting lineups for the 2009 NHL All-Star Game Jan. 25 in Montreal. With two weeks left before the polls close on January 2, Crosby had received a league-high 793,995 votes.  malkin was next with 715,663.

Jagr set the record in 2000 with 1,020,736 votes.

Montreal’s Alex Kovalev, Saku Koivu and Alex Tanguay are third through fifth.

Alexander Ovechkin is a distant sixth – Tanguay has more than twice as many votes as the reighning league MVP.

The Canadiens, though, remain well-represented in the projected starting lineup. Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek remain the top two defencemen in balloting, while Carey Price is still the top goaltender.

Pittsburgh defencemen Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney are third and fourth behind the Canadiens’ defenceman, and Price’s lead over Pittsburgh′s Marc-Andre Fleury has slimmed.  Fleury trails by just 68,300 votes.

A Western Conference update will be issued by the NHL on Wednesday.

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Posted by admin on Dec 16 2008. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.