The NHL announced its All- Star team reserves today and the Boston Bruins will be sending the same three players it did last year. Zdeno Chara, Marc Savard, and Tim Thomas will all be going for the second year in a row. The January 25th contest showcases a loaded Eastern Conference All-Star team, with four out of the five top scorers in the game playing for the East, Alexander Ovechkin, Jeff Carter, Thomas Vanek, and Zach Parise. Only Boston’s Phil Kessel, who is fourth in the NHL in goals, not picked for the squad. The Western Team fields a defensive corps that coaches dream about.

Along with Kessel, David Krejci could also be classified as an All-Star snub. Krejci and Kessel are 17th and 18th in points (10th and 11th in the Eastern Conference). However, the East is loaded with talent up front and the only player you can argue should be replaced by one of the young Bruins would be Canadiens forward Alex Kovalev (75th in points), who was voted in by the fans. Hard to contest against the fans when the game will be played in Montreal. In fact, Montreal has four out of the six starters, all pick by fan voting. Kovalev will join defensemen Mike Komisarek, Andre Markov and goaltender Carey Price as Eastern All-Star starters. The four Habs players will join Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and golden boy Sidney Crosby in the starting line up. Crosby broke Jaromir Jagr’s record for All-Star fan votes with 1,713,021votes.

Your Bruins
 

Marc Savard makes his second All-Star appearance. Savard currently is fourth in points with 49 on the season. His 36 assist is good for third in the league and the +/- 25 is best amongst NHLers.  Savard will look to duplicate his All-Star experience for a year ago when he scored the game-winning goal during an 8-7 win for the East.
 

Big Z, Zdeno Chara is skating in his fourth career NHL All-Star game. Z has appeared in all 40 games for the Bruins this season. With a team-high 26:22 of ice time per game, Chara has 7 goals and 15 assist on the year.  A +17 rating and 48 penalty minutes proves Chara’s value to Bruins and is rewarded with the selection. Chara is also the two-time defending Hardest Shot contest winner at the NHL All-Star game, having recorded blasts of 100.4 MPH in 2007 and 103.1 MPH in 2008. The 2009 Cisco Hardest Shot contest will be held as part of the Honda/NHL All-Star Super Skills Competition on Saturday, January 24 at 7:00 p.m. ET
 

Thomas, who has compiled a 16 win season, is among the league leaders in all major goaltending categories. He ranks fourth in Goals Against Average (2.13), tied for fourth in Save Percentage (.932), and tied for fifth in shutouts (3). His unorthodox style and his never quit approach he left the league scratching their heads on how he does so well. Whatever it is, its working and Timmy makes his second consecutive All- Star game.

Eastern Conference All-Star Roster…
STARTERS:
Goaltender: C. Price (MTL)
Defensemen: A.Markov (MTL), M. Komisarek (MTL)
Forwards: S. Crosby (PIT), E. Malkin (PIT), A.Kovalev (MTL)

RESERVES:
Goaltenders: H. Lundqvist (NYR), T. Thomas (BOS)
Defensemen: J. Bouwmeester (FLA), Z. Chara (BOS), M. Streit (NYI), T. Kaberle (TOR)
Forwards: I. Kovalchuk (ATL), M. Savard (BOS), T. Vanek (BUF), E. Staal (CAR), Z Parise (NJD), D. Heatley (OTT), J. Carter (PHI), V. Lecavalier (TBL), A. Ovechkin (WSH)

Western Conference All-Star Roster…
STARTERS:
Goaltender: J.S. Giguere (ANA)
Defensemen: B. Campbell (CHI), S. Niedermayer (ANA)
Forwards: P. Kane (CHI), J. Toews (CHI), R. Getzlaf (ANA)

RESERVES:
Goaltenders: N. Backstrom (MIN), R. Luongo (VAN)
Defenseman: N. Lidstrom (DET), S. Souray (EDM), S. Weber (NSH), D. Boyle (SJS)
Forwards: J. Iginla (CGY), M. Hejduk (COL), R. Nash (CBJ), M. Modano (DAL), P. Datsyuk (DET), D. Brown (LAK), S. Doan (PHX), K. Tkachuk (STL), J. Thornton (SJS)