Just two years ago, forward John Scott was condemned by NHL Network’s Mike Milbury as “a meathead” who did not belong in the NHL. This season, despite playing in only 11 games and being waived to the minor leagues, he received the highest number of All-Star votes in the NHL.
At 33 years old, the veteran Scott has played for six teams in his eight years in the league. Over that span, he has played in 285 games, while accumulating a whopping 542 penalty minutes and only 11 points — five goals and six assists. For context, Washington Capitals forward Evgeny Kuznetsov — who has scored 48 points this season — will not be participating in this year’s All-Star Game.
During the 2013-14 season, while playing for the Buffalo Sabres, Scott was suspended for a vicious illegal check to the head of Boston Bruins forward Loui Eriksson. Since then, he has been suspended on two other occasions for a total of six games. While the hit on Eriksson was Scott’s first suspension, his reputation as a bruiser was and continues to be obvious throughout the league.
With all this said, one simple question remains: How was John Scott even considered for the All-Star Game?
Last November on the “Marek vs. Wyshynski” podcast, John Marek of Sportsnet expressed his interest in seeing Scott participate in the new 3-on-3 format of the All-Star Game. Soon after, #JohnScottASG was soon trending on Twitter and Reddit, among others.
Both the NHL and the Arizona Coyotes (his team at the time of the final vote) urged him to step down and decline his All-Star spot, but Scott rightfully refused. Days later, he was traded to the Montreal Canadiens and sent down to their minor league affiliate, the St. John’s IceCaps.
There was speculation that the trade was made in order to prevent the enforcer from playing in the All-Star Game. However, considering the fact that Scott has played for 20 percent of the teams in the NHL in just eight seasons, it’s hard to say outwardly that the trade was made just to keep Scott from participating.
Through all this controversy, though, Scott will remain the captain of the Pacific Division at this year’s All-Star Game.
The NHL clearly needs to remove the fan vote system. At the very least, it must lessen the power of the fan vote. If it were up to me, fans would not vote for All-Stars in any sport.
While it was Derek Jeter’s last season playing baseball, he started and hit leadoff in the MLB All-Star Game despite having subpar statistics. In the NBA, Kobe Bryant currently leads the All-Star fan vote although he has poor numbers too.
Now, obviously, these two cases are entirely different. I wouldn’t dare compare a bush league player like John Scott to living legends like Kobe and Jeter. Bryant has been an All-Star 17 times — the most among active players. In fact, if the lockout did not cancel the 1999 NBA All-Star Game, he would hold the NBA record with 18 consecutive appearances. Derek Jeter played in 14 All-Star Games. Due to their illustrious careers, those two earned one last All-Star appearance.
My point is that All-Stars should be selected based on performance, either honoring a player’s performance that season or that player’s career. All-Stars should not be chosen for popularity, and especially not for trends on Twitter.
Consider Jaromir Jagr of the Florida Panthers, who finished among the top of the league in All-Star votes. Hypothetically speaking, if Jagr, 43, had done something similar to Jeter and Bryant and announced his retirement earlier this season, I wouldn’t care what his stats were. He has earned the right to play in one last All-Star Game.
The same goes for Peyton Manning in the NFL. Manning missed much of this season due to injury. As a result, he seems like a shell of his normal self on the football field. But, there would be no problem for him to play in one last Pro Bowl, especially if he had declared his retirement from football earlier in the season.
I commend John Scott for the way he has handled this situation. He didn’t ask for all this attention, and he knows he doesn’t belong in the All-Star Game. He’s not pretending to be anything he’s not. Rather, he’s trying to make the best of this peculiar situation which has displaced himself and his family from their home in Arizona more than 4,000 miles away in another country.
In the end, the NHL made the right decision. Under the current All-Star selection system, fan votes declare All-Stars. And frankly, the league cannot take away Scott’s votes. Hopefully, we see some sort of voting panel next year, so that something like this doesn’t happen again.
