What’s rigged is Necas having over 100k more votes than Panarin and Panarin getting in over him.

Both Caufield and Stuzle had significantly more votes than Matthews

ok let me explain it. The all stars going to the event are voted by fans. Most of the votes are done on twitter. So what happened was Tim Stutzle, Cole Caulfield and Necas were all trending on Twitter for a week. with stutzle trending with about 265K tweets(aka votes), Caufield had about 280K tweets and Necas had a high number as well (idk what it was) but those 3 players were the top 3 by far. Plus to make things worse Majority of leaf fans were voting Nylander on twitter not AM34. So the results made no sense at all.

My speculation is that the NHL saw how fans reacted to the All star jersey leak (which was a very positive reaction) and decided to Rig the votes to make the star players (the big names) from the bigger franchises, who are in the playoffs join the event because when your NHL team is doing well more fans are engaged and happy therefore spending more money.

So they decided to swap out Necas for Panarin Because the Rangers fan base is much bigger and Panarin sells more jerseys. They swapped out Stutzle for Pasta because everyone in Boston currently knows the team is first in the league by 10 points compared to the Ottawa fan base who isn't as much engaged because of the teams performance. Finally they swapped Caufield for AM34 because I think they believed because of Montreal tanking not as many fans were engaged to the team compared to Toronto who is doing very well for themselves.

Dahlin should be in, but they don't play the same position so I don't see how they affect each other (I just realized they didn't reserve spots for dmen and just lumped skaters together which is pretty dumb)

This is one of the reasons why I prioritize buying knock off jerseys

Dude you don't even know how upset I am not being able to get a Stutzle all star jersey...

Every pro sport all stars games are really a joke, especially the NHLs.
Betcha most of the players were hoping they weren't picked for the game....so they got a bit of a vacation

it's just obscenely frustrating because everybody on twitter saw how Stützle, Caufield and Necas were easily winning the fan votes. so it's clear that the NHL just decided that they wanted Matthews in. Which like, whatever if the NHL just wants to put whoever they want in. but it's just annoying that the NHL had the whole "fan vote" facade and acted like we'd have some sort of say, and then ignored it

Basically a Participation Trophy, turned into a joke.

Thanks for the explanation! I was definitely happy that AM34 got in (I voted for him on my ballots) but it was a little weird on the website bc most of the players that got in disappeared after using my first ballot

Not saying Matthews should be out,
but ALL those other guys are deserving as well

Especially Dahlin, who probably finishes 2nd in Norris voting right now (and we have no defensemen named in our division)