Written by Jibblescribbits | 09 January 2008

I did the West earlier, let's see if the fans were as smart with the East.

The Eastern Starters are : In the East Sidney (duh), Lecavalier, and Alfredsson get the nod. Let's see if the fans did a good job voting?

So here's the Eastern Conference OIE leaders so far:

Player	ESP/20	ESG/20	ES TOI	ESP
Jason Spezza	1.26	0.38	585:31	37
Dany Heatley	1.18	0.54	709:28	42
Vincent Lecavalier	1.18	0.58	692:51	41
Sidney Crosby	1.12	0.42	623:21	35
Daniel Alfredsson	1.10	0.54	634:18	35
Ilya Kovalchuk	1.07	0.65	672:23	36
Mats Sundin	1.05	0.47	590:25	31
Alex Ovechkin	0.97	0.53	719:33	35
Evgeni Malkin	0.89	0.40	605:23	27
Nik Antropov	0.89	0.29	560:37	25
Cory Stillman	0.89	0.34	583:05	26
Matt Cullen	0.89	0.14	429:14	19
Vaclav Prospal	0.88	0.33	727:59	32
Tomas Plekanec	0.86	0.30	533:33	23
Ray Whitney	0.84	0.56	568:13	24
Marc Savard	0.84	0.26	619:45	26
Scott Gomez	0.81	0.16	621:01	25
Jason Pominville	0.80	0.27	522:55	21
Martin St. Louis	0.79	0.26	756:13	30
Olli Jokinen	0.74	0.33	671:29	25
Mike Richards	0.74	0.31	513:42	19
Zach Parise	0.73	0.28	573:51	21
Marian Hossa	0.69	0.34	582:49	20
Joffrey Lupul	0.68	0.34	530:52	18
Eric Staal	0.68	0.35	678:36	23
Mike Comrie	0.65	0.36	614:42	20
Rod Brind'Amour	0.64	0.31	651:53	21
Michael Nylander	0.64	0.19	529:03	17
Daniel Briere	0.64	0.32	561:19	18
Jaromir Jagr	0.57	0.24	664:08	19
Alex Kovalev	0.55	0.27	584:09	16
Brad Richards	0.37	0.09	699:26	13

From just this list you could make a strong, very strong, case for an All Senator-front line. Alfredsson is a full .3 above the next highest RW (Pominville), so Alfredsson is pretty much set at RW. On the Left Spezza is having a fantastic year, with challenges from only Kovalchuck and Ovechkin, but they are still .11 and .21 back. Yet somehow Lecavalier and Crosby, both centers and neither having as good a season as Spezza, at even strength anyways are getting the nod. Spezza does yield the Goal OIE so let's see if the Penalty +/- helps Sids or Vinney's case at all.

Spezza: -4
Lecavalier: +4
Crosby: +27

Yes Crosby leads the league in Penalty +/- (many will say he gets the superstar treatment.. it's hard to argue this when the next closest player is a full +5 behind him), but the +27 can't be ignored. That, along with the better goal OIE would push him over Spezza and Lecavalier in my book:

Eastern Forwards: Should have been Heatly, Crosby, Alfredsson. Overall not bad but could have been a touch better

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