Going into Thursday night, the St. Louis Blues had been on a bit of a skid, losing six of their previous eight games. Their top defenceman, Colton Parayko, has been out of the lineup and the team really doesn't look the same without him. They got a positive update on Parayko yesterday though:

Berube on Parayko: "He's skating again today, so that's good news." #stlblues

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 25, 2021

That he's back skating is a good sign. If they can get him back at any point soon, all the better. They have desperately missed him.

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Bowen Byram was back in the lineup for Colorado on Thursday. The Death Star is nearly complete. Taylor Hall, come on down…

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Kirby Dach was skating at the morning skate for Chicago on Thursday but did not play last night. There hasn't been a timeline given or anything but just by my own observations, it really does seem he's close to returning. I am going to start adding him now. Do with that information what you will.

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Alex Radulov was out Thursday and the upcoming schedule is not kind with 20 games in five weeks. They need their guys healthy (Tyler Seguin was back in Dallas skating, though he's still a ways away) and they need them healthy ASAP.

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Trade deadline news:

Federal government poised to approve a 7-day quarantine with extra testing for NHL players traded from American teams to Canadian teams before the April 12th trade deadline. Government source says all provinces with NHL teams have approved of the measures.

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) March 25, 2021

That certainly facilitates things, as it may add 3-5 games for the incoming player to Canada.

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Hey, so, Mika Zibanejad's regression is coming along nicely. He had a six-point game last week, had three points earlier this week in a pair of games, and did the thing again last night. The Rangers beat the living heck out of the Flyers again, this time 7-3. Zibanejad had another natural hat trick his second in a week against the Flyers. He added three assists for good measure.

Ryan Strome had a goal and three assists, Pavel Buchnevich had a pair of tallies, and Adam Fox had five assists in this onslaught. That gives Fox 37 points in his last 41 games for the Rangers, dating back to the final 10 games of the 2019-20 campaign. That is pretty good. (Thanks to my pod partner Josh Harris for that note.)

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Rocco Grimaldi – this is not a lie – scored a first-period hat trick in the span of 2:34 against Detroit on Thursday night. Eeli Tolvanen registered a power-play goal in there, which is what messed up it being a natural hat trick. Hockey is incredible.

Nashville won that game 7-1 with Roman Josi posting a pair of assists.

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Evgeny Kuznetsov had a pair of goals in Washington's 4-3 win over New Jersey. After a slow start, he has really come alive lately with three goals and nine points in eight games. He is also putting up excellent play-driving numbers so he really does look like the guy of a few years ago. Having that guy back in the lineup completely changes the outlook of this team.

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Sebastian Aho scored in overtime to lift the Hurricanes to a 4-3 win over the Blue Jackets. Martin Necas had a goal and an assist as his breakout season continues; give him 24 points in 29 games on the season.

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Just a ridiculous goal from Kaprizov:

✨ Kirill The Thrill does it again ✨ pic.twitter.com/B33EDGlFmO

— FOX Sports North (@fsnorth) March 26, 2021

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The Islanders' "third" line had a great night as J-G Pageau had a goal and two assists, Oliver Wahlstrom had a goal, and Anthony Beauvillier had a goal and an assist, scoring the OT winner to lift the Islanders to a 4-3 win. That makes 19 points in his last 22 games for Pageau.

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I thought for a Ramblings today we could have a bit of fun. There is no All-Star Game year for *gestures broadly* these reasons, so let’s make an All-Star team of our own.

Thinking up of all-star teams is a fun thing to do, right? I mean, sports fans do that from the time they're able to put coherent thoughts together. Who didn't grow up imagining all their heroes on the same team?

So, I thought we could do the same here, minus the "heroes" part. How about a league-wide all-star team? Alright, that's simple enough. We need to make this a bit challenging though. What about a league-wide all-star team – comprised of 12 forwards, six defencemen, and two goalies – that includes just five players from each of our four divisions this year? That would give us the 20 players we need to make the all-star team. What if we could only take one player from any team, too? Now we're cookin'.

How about we do that, then. We draft 20 players, five from each division, and no multiples from the same franchise. Oh, one final thing: they have to play their proper spots, including the defencemen. Sorry, you can't stick John Carlson at LHD. I guess Leon Draisaitl can play wherever.

What would a team like this look like? Well, let's go step by step. I am doing this in real time as I write this, so the corrections will be included.

First, the automatics. Who are the guys that are the locks from their franchises? Off the top of my head, the following: Connor McDavid, Elias Pettersson, Auston Matthews, Mark Stone, Patrick Kane, and Roman Josi. That takes Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Vegas, Chicago, and Nashville off the list, and a lineup like this:

XXXX – McDavid – Kane

XXXX – Matthews – Stone

XXXX – Pettersson – XXXX

XXXX – XXXXXXXXX – XXXX

Josi – XXXX

XXXX-XXXX

XXXX-XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

Clearly, we need to look for left wingers. But we've already removed a few from consideration like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Max Pacioretty, Alex DeBrincat, and Filip Forsberg. See how this can thin out the field quickly?

I was tempted to just stick in John Carlson, but I think Alex Ovechkin will be more necessary here. This also moves Artemi Panarin into focus for us, though that may turn into Adam Fox at some point. Brady Tkachuk is also a must down the left side, I think. So, that gives us three, for now

We should also start filling out the blue line a bit.

Jared Spurgeon is one of the first guys in for me. Perennially underrated and I think the best Minnesota player to use (Joel Eriksson-Ek and Kirill Kaprizov: I'm sorry). That he is a right shot works in our favour here, too. I am going to add a couple more defencemen here, too. The first is Colton Parayko from St. Louis and the other is Zach Werenski from Columbus. I think they complement each other perfectly – one being more offence-focused and the other defensively – and would actually make a good defence pair together.  

Our lineup is starting to round out nicely:

Ovechkin-McDavid-Kane

Panarin-Matthews-Stone

Tkachuk-Pettersson-XXXX

XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX-XXXX

Josi-Spurgeon

Werenski-Parayko

XXXX-XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

At this point, these are the teams left to pick from: Calgary, Montreal, Winnipeg, Anaheim, Arizona, Colorado, Los Angeles, San Jose, Carolina, Dallas, Detroit, Florida, Tampa Bay, Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, the Islanders, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.

I need to start getting the best players from the best teams now.

Nikita Kucherov, come on down. Yeah, he's injured but he's also still probably the best right winger in hockey when he's healthy. He goes on this all-star roster.

Connor Hellebuyck is the next on the roster. When I look at the goaltenders left I would want to take, it boils down to him, John Gibson, or Darcy Kuemper. Kuemper is hurt right now (this is a tiebreaker, not an outright decision, which separates him from Kuch) and Gibson hasn't looked very good this year. Hellebuyck is our starting goalie.

All we have left is our fourth line, our third defence pair, and one goalie.

At this point, I'm sure there are people out there screaming "DAVID PASTRNAK! NATHAN MACKINNON! SEBASTIAN AHO! SIDNEY CROSBY!" and I don't blame them for yelling as such. I wanted to give myself a bit of flexibility at the end of the list.  

Pastrnak is locked in for us and that starts to limit us a lot. We have one player left to take from the East and our right wing is full. I think this where Ivan Provorov appears as well.

That gives us a roster as such:

Ovechkin-McDavid-Kane

Panarin-Matthews-Stone

Tkachuk-Pettersson-Kucherov

XXXX-XXXX-Pastrnak

Josi-Spurgeon

Werenski-Parayko

Provorov-XXXX

Hellebuyck

XXXX

By division, we have all five from the North, three from the West, four from the Central, and four from the East.

We need to take one from the Central, but it's MacKinnon or Makar and I'm not making that decision yet.

Actually, I'm changing this up. Pettersson is out and Jacob Markstrom is our backup goalie. That allows us to roster both Crosby and Barkov, while sliding Makar on the blue line. Let me count this out in my head: we still have five in the North, Barkov rounds out the Central, Crosby rounds out the East, and Makar adds one to the West. Wait, is that right? Let us take a look:

Ovechkin-McDavid-Kane

Panarin-Matthews-Stone

B. Tkachuk-Barkov-Kucherov

XXXX-Crosby-Pastrnak

Josi-Spurgeon

Werenski-Parayko

Provorov-Makar

Hellebuyck

Markstrom

Hey that team looks pretty good! Alright one spot left. We need a left winger from the West, and it can't be from Vegas, St. Louis, Minnesota, or Colorado. That leaves us with Anaheim, Arizona, San Jose, and Los Angeles. In other words, welcome to the team, Evander Kane.

Our final roster looks like this:

Ovechkin-McDavid-P. Kane

Panarin-Matthews-Stone

B. Tkachuk-Barkov-Kucherov

E. Kane-Crosby-Pastrnak

Josi-Spurgeon

Werenski-Parayko

Provorov-Makar

Hellebuyck

Markstrom

As we take a look through the roster, we need to talk the omissions first.

No one from Montreal or Vancouver. (Relax, 'Nucks fans, I'm a Habs fan myself.) This is a function of "who would they replace that is worse?" It would have to be Elias Pettersson over Matthews (nope), J.T. Miller over Brady Tkachuk (also no), or Carey Price over Connor Hellebuyck (no).

Out of the Anaheim/Arizona/Los Angeles triumvirate, there is maybe one guy – Anze Kopitar – who would warrant discussion and even then, we don't have a centre from the West there for a swap, so we'd have to keep swapping players around. That is not appealing.

From the Central, Detroit and Dallas not being there make sense. Both Klingberg and Heiskanen are RD and there is no Central RD listed, while Detroit really has no one worthy of the list.

In the East, we probably get our biggest omission in Jack Eichel. Maybe Mat Barzal has an argument, but there's no one from New Jersey. It really comes down to Eichel or Crosby. I still believe, even now, that Crosby is the better centre. That is probably the biggest argument to come from the omissions.

Alright, Dobber fans. That is my entire thought process on laying out an all-star team using parameters I made up on the spot. It is a fun exercise, though. Try it out!