Fan voting for the NHL All-Star game opened this week and one of the early surprises has been the rise of Arizona Coyotes enforcer John Scott to the top of the rankings even though he has played 38 minutes of hockey this season (in only six games) and has just five goals in 280 career games over seven seasons.
Wanting to see Scott play in a 3-on-3 format is obviously the result of fans having some sort of fun with the voting process for the game (or some sort of protest against the All-Star game in general). So far Scott has been a pretty good sport about it, and even though he said on Tuesday that he definitely didn't want to get voted in as a joke, he still plans on attending the game if he receives enough votes.
But on Thursday Scott issued a statement through the Coyotes urging fans to vote for some of his teammates instead of him.
A note from John Scott: pic.twitter.com/kDEH7y4vDr
— #ARIvsDET (@ArizonaCoyotes) December 3, 2015
This year's All-Star game is taking on a different format than previous games. It will be a 3-on-3 event made up of three mini-games that feature teams from each of the NHL's four divisions. Fans have the opportunity to vote for the "captain" of each team (Metropolitan, Atlantic, Central and Pacific Divisions) while the NHL will select the remaining 40 players for the game.
Scott, of course, is 100 percent correct that a few of his teammates (all of them might be more accurate) are more deserving of votes, whether it be defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who is consistently one of the best defensemen in the NHL, or one of the team's stud rookies, Max Domi or Anthony Duclair.
He is also one of the growing number of players that is actively campaigning to not be voted into the game.
Buffalo Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons asked his fans in Latvia to not vote him into the game this year after he was the leading vote-getter for last year's game (by a significant margin), while Florida Panthers forward Jaromir Jagr is urging fans not to vote him simply because he's too darn old to play a 3-on-3 game.
The All-Star game will take place in Nashville on Jan. 31.
