Claimed:Rookies Falter in All-Star Game

[scoop 3,254]

Rookies Falter in All-Star Game

 

For veterans Pietro Maximoff, Diana Maxwell, and Unassisted, the Season 53 All-Star Game was a chance to showcase their talent in a game featuring some of the best players in the league. For rookies Alexander Thrower, Astrid Moon, and M.T. Power, it was a humbling experience. This trio of first-year had arguably the three worst performances in the game, and while it would be expected that rookies might struggle, they did almost nothing at all.

 

Of the three, Alexander Thrower is the only one even playing well in the regular season. Thrower is a member of an Express team that includes Joel Jarvi's quest to break single-season records that have been in place since the days of Scotty Campbell, and Thrower has accumulated 47 assists and 85 points for himself. Certainly a big part of his success has been in feeding off of Jarvi and the team's over-reliance on a handful of players, but numbers are numbers. His offensive statistics earned him his spot in the All-Star Game, even if his skills don't really match up to the league's elite. That skill gap was demonstrated in this game, as Thrower could not get anything going. In 21 and a half minutes of play, Thrower had a -1 rating and didn't particularly contribute anything other than his six of 13 face-off wins.

 

As for the rookie goalies Astrid Moon and M.T. Power, it could be said that they should not have been in the All-Star Game in the first place; and frankly, I'm not sure exactly who made the decision to invite them. Moon is just one of two starting goalies, the other being TOR G, who has a save percentage under 0.900, while Power has the next worst in the league. What these two players have going for them is their wins; the two of them are currently tied for the fourth most wins at 33. Those wins are a largely a product of their teams, and these goalies have not actually played all that well individually. They were exposed as the young, inexperienced players that they are in the All-Star Game, as they combined to allow ten of the 12 goals scored. We had been headed toward a rare low-scoring ASG, until the rookies came in and things changed.

 

Astrid Moon? More like Disasterid Moon.

 

I think Thrower's inclusion was justified going in, but Power and (more so) Moon probably shouldn't even have been in the game. If not them, then who? I understand that players like Artom Zhumbayev and Dmitri Dadonov have had their save percentages inflated by facing a large numbers of shots; but still, these two players are more skilled and have at least had careers up to this point (and actually a pretty good one from Dadonov). Zhumbayev's save percentage this season is the highest among starters, and Dadonov's 0.921 greatly exceeds Moon's 0.895 mark. The wins are lacking, yes, but they are better players with better personal stats. In nothing else, the results of the All-Star Game should prove that Moon and Power did not belong in the game.

[scoop 3,254]

for Maxwell, a proper all-star

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

Theres "Rookies Falter" and there is "Whatever Moon Did"

[Kendrick 4,721]

Claimed