The NHL has named Wayne Simmonds, Patrick Marleau, and Frederik Andersen as its Three Stars of the Week.
Simmonds scored two goals in two games, including a game winner, in the abbreviated schedule before the All-Star weekend. He was then named MVP of the All-Star Game with three goals in two games as his Metropolitan Division won the weekend. Simmonds has 21 goals this season, good for ninth in the NHL.
Marleau began the week in spectacular fashion, scoring four goals in the third period of a 5-2 win over the lowly Colorado Avalanche. He is just the twelfth player in NHL history to accomplish that feat, and the first to do so since Mario Lemieux did it in January 1997. Marleau had another goal and assist in the Sharks 4-3 win over Winnipeg and 4-1 loss to Edmonton, respectively. He now has 17 goals on the season.
Andersen had back-to-back shutouts in his two appearances last week. He made 26 saves in a 4-0 blanking of the Calgary Flames and 22 saves in another 4-0 victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Andersen has a 21-10-8 record to go with his 0.921 SV% and three shutouts in his first season with the Maple Leafs.
- The second year of the new All-Star Game format was very popular, according to NBC Sports. In a series of tweets, NBC Sports PR reported the ratings were up dramatically over the 2015-16 edition of the game. The NHL switched from the previous format of two voted captains picking teams out of the players selected to a three-on-three tournament with all four divisions facing off for the prize money. Prior versions included Eastern Conference vs Western Conference and North America vs World.
- Fear not, NHL jersey purists. The NHL is not considering putting ads on jerseys, despite having ads on the shoulders of the jerseys at September’s World Cup of Hockey. However, Commissioner Gary Bettman believes there’s a difference between the jerseys at the World Cup and the NHL teams’ sweaters. Bettman commented on the issue during All-Star Weekend, saying “it’s not an active discussion among NHL clubs. I always said we wouldn’t be first… The NBA is doing it. But it would take an unusual circumstance – which I would define as ‘a lot of money that I’m having trouble comprehending right now’ – for us to even be thinking about it.” Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshnyski writes that Bettman “understands the levels of fan backlash if the advertising became too ungainly.”