Jake Guentzel, 2020 NHL All-Star

Kind of a weird time for a press release done without much fanfare, and looking around the internet I don’t see any other players getting named, but congrats to Jake Guentzel who apparently has been named to the 2020 NHL All-Star game next month. Here’s what the Penguins’ website had to say:

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jake Guentzel has been selected for the NHL All-Star Game for the first time, it was announced by the NHL this afternoon. Guentzel will represent the Metropolitan Division.

The 2020 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend will be held January 24-25 at the Enterprise Center at St. Louis.

The 2020 Honda NHL All-Star Game will be a 3-on-3 tournament between the four NHL divisions, and will be held on Saturday, January 25 at 8:00 PM ET. One night prior, on Friday, January 24, will be the New Amsterdam Vodka All-Star Skills event at 8:00 PM ET.

Guentzel, who is now the 37th player in team history to be selected to an NHL All-Star Game, is Pittsburgh’s team leader in goals (19), points (40) and game-winning goals (4). His 19 goals are tied for 12th while his four game-winners rank ninth (tied) in the NHL, respectively. Guentzel has done the bulk of his damage at even strength, where he’s scored 13 of his 19 goals (68.4%) and tallied 30 of his 40 points (75%).

There are 11 spots on each division’s team, and since by rule all eight teams in the division have to send at least one player, we’ll see if there’s any repeats for Pittsburgh. It’s conceivable Guntzel may be the only Pens representative at the event, however in the gimmicky “last man in” poll for fans to vote in one final player, a popular team like the Pens might have the muscle to get Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang to the ASG.

Letang won the last man in poll last year to get to the event. We’ll see if he’s a nominee for it again this year, but for now we know for sure it’ll be Guentzel there as a well-deserved Penguin all-star.

Update: here’s the full roster, pending the one more “last man in”.

Also of note is that Joonas Korpisalo very recently hurt his knee and is “out weeks”, so his status has to be in extreme doubt at this point to play in this event. Since Columbus already has Seth Jones going, the league doesn’t need to consider a Columbus attendee and could always just take the best remaining goalie which would be Tristan Jarry.