Penguins All-Star Draft Recap: Fleury and Letang Go Head-to-Head

As many of you know, the format to this season's All-Star Game took it back to the streets, whereby two captains were elected and the remaining all-stars were selected one by one.  The two captains in this case, Carolina's Eric Staal and Detroit's Nick Lidstrom, each represented the East and West, respectively.

The first pick of this so-called draft more or less set the tone of what we can expect to see if future All-Star Games hold the same format.  With his first pick, Staal selected teammate Cam Ward, whose inclusion in the game could easily be an area of debate, let alone his first overall selection.  But what do you expect from a guy like E. Staal, especially in front of the home crowd?

Given the league's never-ending interest in constantly pitting Sidney Crosby against Alex Ovechkin, it must have come as a disappointment to some suit somewhere in the league's front office that the announcers couldn't talk about which of the two went first in the draft.  Nevertheless, Ovechkin was selected in the second round by Staal, the first winger to go. 

If the aforementioned Crosby's exclusion from the game was only heightened by Evgeni Malkin joining him, then at least Pens fans had the option to sit by and see just where fellow all-stars Marc-Andre Fleury and Kris Letang were selected.

I'll admit, I'm not entirely interested in watching the ASG.  I probably haven't watched an entire one through and through since the late 90s, but I was kind of curious to see where Tanger and MAF would go in the draft.

Oddly enough, the two will go against each other, as Fleury was selected first by Team Lidstrom in the ninth round.  Guess Lidstrom decided that putting Flower on his team at least gave him a chance at hitting the mesh in the dying seconds of the third period.  Woops.  Wrong game.

Letang was selected shortly after by Staal in the 12th round, despite his initial interest in potentially playing alongside Lidstrom.

And the last pick of the draft you ask?  Phil Kessel.

Bruins and Leafs fans had to have had a laugh at that.

NHL.com has a full breakdown of the charade.