Kuznetsov, Neal replace Ovechkin, Toews as NHL All-Stars

Scott described the incident in a first-person account posted Thursday by The Players Tribune.

Evgeny Kuznetsov will serve as Ovechkin’s replacement in the game, while New York Islanders captain John Tavares has been named replacement captain of the Metropolitan Division.

According to Scott, someone with the National Hockey League asked him: “Do you think this is something your kids would be proud of?”

“At 6’8” tall, Scott is a player known mostly for fighting on the ice – something he admits in a column he penned for The Players’ Tribune.

“Because, while I may not deserve to be an NHL All-Star, I know I deserve to be the judge of what my kids will – and won’t – be proud of me for”, wrote the 33-year-old Scott, who has two daughters. It is largely seen as a joke, because John Scott is not a good enough player to be an NHL All-Star.

Defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic was particularly vocal, and said he’d be much more likely to watch Sunday’s three-on-three tournament with Scott in the lineup. Ovechkin will be forced to miss Washington’s first game back from the All-Star break.

So the NHL was probably a little surprised by the backlash it received when the league made sure Scott was uprooted from his home in Phoenix to be shipped off to Newfoundland all because of a stupid All-Star Game. Right now the Arizona Coyotes are the only team in the National Hockey League without a representative in Nashville. “My wife and I had to move all across the country, year after year”.

But at the same time: this isn’t Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “It is not easy”. The game will be played at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on January 31.

John Scott shares a laugh with his teammates as he practices with the St. John’s Ice Caps, an AHL affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens, in Portland this week.

Some leagues don’t care about their All-Star games. “Even though it’s about hockey and you’re trying to represent the game, you can still get away and do some fun things, so I’m looking forward to it”. Honestly, on some level, I agreed….

A lot of fans trivialize All-Star games and think there’s no point to them because they don’t actually count toward the standings or any player’s personal stats – and that’s fine.

“I’ll pick every corner of the net”, Scott told Michael Traikos of the National Post.