If the puck were dropped today, the first shift of the NHL All-Star Game would look a lot like a Montreal Canadiens home game.
Should current voting trends ultimately prevail, the Canadiens would become the first team in the history of NHL All-Star fan balloting to ice an entire starting lineup when the NHL All-Star Game faces off in Montreal’s Bell Centre on Jan 25.
Montreal fans' collective zeal for on-line democracy so far has established goaltender Carey Price, defensemen Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek and forwards Alex Kovalev, Saku Koivu and Alex Tanguay as the leading vote-getters — by a wide margin at each position — for the six Eastern Conference starting lineup spots.
The previous one-club high for fan-voted starters was five — Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and Grant Fuhr were selected to open the 1986 NHL All-Star Game in Hartford.
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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