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Mon Jan 10 04:35pm EST

Danny Briere's 2011 NHL All-Star Game captains: Crosby and Toews

By Greg Wyshynski

The 2011 NHL All-Star Game Fantasy Draft pool will be selected on Tuesday, and Danny Briere's(notes) is one of the names in the mix. He's seventh in the League in goals with 21, and has scored 33 points in 38 games.

If he's an all-star for the Philadelphia Flyers, that means he'll have a say over which players will be named captains for the first year under the new format; with the teams named after each captain (i.e. Team Avery, in some parallel hockey dimension).

There hasn't been much discussion prior to the All-Star pool selection about which players might be declared captains by their peers; so Stephen Whyno of Philadelphia Sports Daily attempted to give us a glimpse of their thought process by asking Briere whom he'd choose for All-Star captains:

"Boy. I don't think you can go besides [Sidney] Crosby to start with, with everything he's done the past few years in his career and the way he's running away again this year with the scoring lead and leading Pittsburgh. I think you have to start with him," Briere said. "And probably [Jonathan] Toews - the winner of the Stanley Cup, the captain of the Stanley Cup winner."

Imagine, for a second, Flyers fans, rooting for Briere or Mike Richards(notes) or Claude Giroux(notes) in the All-Star Game while they're playing for Team Crosby. Let that sink in for a second. But that's a significant possibility, as the two teams will be named for the captains, and the Penguins superstar is tops in the NHL in goals and points.

Other possibilities for the captaincy include Alex Ovechkin(notes), and some other captains from around the league: the Red Wings' Nicklas Lidstrom(notes), the Hurricanes' Eric Staal(notes) (the game is at Carolina) or possibly the Canucks' Henrik Sedin(notes).

Would you be happy with Team Crosby vs. Team Toews?

I'm still saying Eric Staal gets one of the captaincies out of respect for the hometown fans in Raleigh (and because, frankly, it's the least controversial decision the players could make). But if Briere's saying Crosby vs. Toews, I wonder how many other all-stars are feeling the same vibe.

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