NHL to increase fan input for All-Star Game roster selections

The NHL will be changing up it’s All-Star Game roster selection this season, as reported by Emily Kaplan of ESPN.

The NHL’s previous voting format saw fans vote for each division’s captain, and then NHL Hockey Operations filled out the rest of the roster, with fans once again voting for the final four players with the “Last Man In”.

For this year’s All-Star Game, the NHL will be increasing the number of players that fans can vote for. NHL Hockey Ops will be announcing their selected 32 players for the All-Star Game, which will include one representative from each team and a goalie, on Thursday. After that, it leaves 12 players – three players per division, including a goalie each – to be voted on by fans.

The NHL will also be increasing the ways that you can vote, most notably the addition of Twitter votes. This will allow fans to vote as many times as they want if they include the player’s name and #NHLAllStarVote, along with any retweets, quote tweets, or replies to that tweet. The league will then combine the Twitter votes with traditional online votes to come up with the final totals.

“We’re always looking for ways to evolve the format,” said NHL chief marketing officer Heidi Browning. “Looking at the data and hearing from fans over the past several years, we know that fans want more influence on our All-Star roster. So we accommodated by expanding the number of players fans can vote for.”

It’s unclear as to whether or not all players will be eligible to be voted on, or if it will be from a selected pool by the NHL. They have limited the options in the past, especially after fans voted enforcer John Scott into the All-Star Game in 2016.

The 12 players voted by fans are expected to be announced on January 19th. The 2023 NHL All-Star weekend will be on February 3rd and 4th, hosted by the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, Florida.