Crosby tops vote getters in early All-Star returns

Sidney Crosby is on pace for his best season ever and the fans are noticing.

Crosby leads all vote getters in the NHL All-Star Fan Balloting Presented by XM with 118,755 votes. Chicago defenseman Duncan Keith is second with 82,968. Nicklas Lidstrom (80,723), Alex Ovechkin (80,169) and Jonathan Toews (79,953) round out the top vote getters with more than 3.62 million votes already cast.

Montreal's Carey Price leads in the goalie category with 71,199 write-in votes. Flyers rookie Sergei Bobrovsky is second behind Price among netminders with 58,101 write-in votes.

Voting continues through Jan. 3. The 2011 NHL All-Star Game presented by Discover will take place Jan. 30 in Raleigh, N.C., and the three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie with the most votes in their respective categories will be named the first All-Stars. The NHL Hockey Operations Department will select the remaining 36 players for the game.

Fans have taken the liberty to go off the ballot and cast their own vote. Price and Bobrovsky are proof of that.

Approximately 33 percent of the 150 vote-getters have come from write-ins, including 26 percent of the forwards, 24 percent of the defensemen and 28 percent of the goaltenders.

Philadelphia right wing Claude Giroux leads the write-in campaign for forwards with 54,215 votes. That's 11th in the forwards category. Pittsburgh's Kris Letang leads defensemen in write-in votes with 50,123, which is good for eighth among blue-liners. Other than Price and Bobrovsky, Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard has also received support with 31,537 write-in votes.

While Crosby, Ovechkin, Toews, Keith, Lidstrom and Price would as of today be the six players automatically selected to play in the All-Star Game, the races are tight.

Steven Stamkos is pushing the forwards with 78,833 votes, which is only 1,120 behind Toews. Chris Pronger trails Lidstrom by just 2,720 votes. Price, though, is currently leading by a landslide with 13,098 more votes than Bobrovsky. Tim Thomas is third with 47,646 and Jaroslav Halak has 47,483.

2011 NHL All-Star Fan Balloting, Presented by XM
(As of 11/22/10)

Forwards
Sidney Crosby	Pittsburgh	118,755
Alex Ovechkin	Washington	80,169
Jonathan Toews	Chicago	79,953
Steven Stamkos	Tampa Bay	78,833
Patrick Kane	Chicago	63,969
Mike Richards	Philadelphia	59,808
Pavel Datsyuk	Detroit	59,372
Marian Hossa	Chicago	57,324
Michael Cammalleri	Montreal	56,569
Evgeni Malkin	Pittsburgh	56,255
*Claude Giroux	Philadelphia	54,215
Danny Briere	Philadelphia	52,365
*Tomas Plekanec	Montreal	48,749
Henrik Zetterberg	Detroit	47,302
Brian Gionta	Montreal	40,214
Eric Staal	Carolina	38,141
Jeff Carter	Philadelphia	38,116
Johan Franzen	Detroit	34,281
Nicklas Backstrom	Washington	32,336
Henrik Sedin	Vancouver	30,401
Daniel Sedin	Vancouver	27,528
*Alexander Semin	Washington	27,304
*Patrick Sharp	Chicago	23,522
Anze Kopitar	Los Angeles	23,419
Joe Thornton	San Jose	20,445
Marian Gaborik	NY Rangers	19,454
*Sean Avery	NY Rangers	17,494
Teemu Selanne	Anaheim	17,264
Phil Kessel	Toronto	16,907
*Jeff Skinner	Carolina	16,652
Patrick Marleau	San Jose	16,078
*Chad LaRose	Carolina	15,214
Dany Heatley	San Jose	15,173
Paul Stastny	Colorado	15,152
Patrice Bergeron	Boston	15,020
Ryan Getzlaf	Anaheim	13,862
Bobby Ryan	Anaheim	13,393
Martin St. Louis	Tampa Bay	12,852
T.J. Oshie	St. Louis	12,555
Ryan Smyth	Los Angeles	12,506
Rick Nash	Columbus	11,862
Derek Roy	Buffalo	11,735
Jarome Iginla	Calgary	11,669
David Krejci	Boston	10,856
Milan Hejduk	Colorado	10,631
Corey Perry	Anaheim	10,343
Thomas Vanek	Buffalo	10,247
Zach Parise	New Jersey	10,232
*Brandon Dubinsky	NY Rangers	9,850
*Chris Stewart	Colorado	9,762
*Paul Bissonnette	Phoenix	9,591
Brad Richards	Dallas	9,238
Daniel Alfredsson	Ottawa	9,071
Mikko Koivu	Minnesota	8,054
*Ryan Kesler	Vancouver	8,020
*Jussi Jokinen	Carolina	8,013
Ilya Kovalchuk	New Jersey	7,669
R.J. Umberger	Columbus	7,470
*Justin Williams	Los Angeles	6,770
Jason Spezza	Ottawa	6,751
John Tavares	NY Islanders	6,176
*Ryan Callahan	NY Rangers	6,000
*Nathan Horton	Boston	5,818
Vincent Lecavalier	Tampa Bay	5,664
*Maxime Talbot	Pittsburgh	5,144
*David Perron	St. Louis	4,771
Ales Hemsky	Edmonton	4,637
Shane Doan	Phoenix	4,499
*Milan Lucic	Boston	4,372
*Dustin Brown	Los Angeles	4,076
Brenden Morrow	Dallas	3,780
David Booth	Florida	3,463
Defensemen
Duncan Keith	Chicago	82,968
Nicklas Lidstrom	Detroit	80,723
Chris Pronger	Philadelphia	78,003
Drew Doughty	Los Angeles	63,999
Kimmo Timonen	Philadelphia	61,951
Mike Green	Washington	56,104
Brent Seabrook	Chicago	54,419
*Kris Letang	Pittsburgh	50,153
*P.K. Subban	Montreal	41,268
Zdeno Chara	Boston	41,081
Brian Rafalski	Detroit	40,901
Dustin Byfuglien	Atlanta	35,469
Marc Staal	NY Rangers	28,570
Paul Martin	Pittsburgh	27,970
Dan Boyle	San Jose	27,794
Shea Weber	Nashville	25,516
Andrei Markov	Montreal	24,140
Joni Pitkanen	Carolina	23,335
Brian Campbell	Chicago	21,692
Sergei Gonchar	Ottawa	21,186
Dion Phaneuf	Toronto	18,360
*Tim Gleason	Carolina	16,034
Dan Hamhuis	Vancouver	13,757
Tomas Kaberle	Toronto	13,284
*John-Michael Liles	Colorado	10,992
*Jack Johnson	Los Angeles	10,201
*Josh Gorges	Montreal	9,357
Stephane Robidas	Dallas	8,069
*Brooks Orpik	Pittsburgh	7,736
Tobias Enstrom	Atlanta	7,259
*John Carlson	Washington	7,176
Ryan Suter	Nashville	7,170
Ed Jovanovski	Phoenix	6,692
*Dan Girardi	NY Rangers	6,593
*Christian Ehrhoff	Vancouver	6,100
Marek Zidlicky	Minnesota	5,686
Jay Bouwmeester	Calgary	5,549
*Tyler Myers	Buffalo	5,126
*Lubomir Visnovsky	Anaheim	5,095
*Joe Corvo	Carolina	5,016
*Alexander Edler	Vancouver	4,602
*Douglas Murray	San Jose	4,572
*Luke Schenn	Toronto	4,562
*Cam Fowler	Anaheim	4,272
*Erik Johnson	St. Louis	4,244
*Adam Foote	Colorado	3,390
*Alex Goligoski	Pittsburgh	3,388
*Niklas Hjalmarsson	Chicago	3,135
Bryan McCabe	Florida	2,874
*Brent Burns	Minnesota	2,843
*Johnny Boychuk	Boston	2,826
*Erik Karlsson	Ottawa	2,598
Mark Streit	NY Islanders	2,500
Goaltenders
*Carey Price	Montreal	71,199
*Sergei Bobrovsky	Philadelphia	58,101
Tim Thomas	Boston	47,646
Jaroslav Halak	St. Louis	47,483
Marc-Andre Fleury	Pittsburgh	44,111
Ryan Miller	Buffalo	39,764
*Jimmy Howard	Detroit	31,537
Cam Ward	Carolina	29,460
Jonathan Quick	Los Angeles	29,175
Roberto Luongo	Vancouver	28,836
Henrik Lundqvist	NY Rangers	24,245
Antti Niemi	San Jose	18,695
*Michal Neuvirth	Washington	15,054
*Marty Turco	Chicago	13,180
Martin Brodeur	New Jersey	12,648
Craig Anderson	Colorado	11,344
Jean-Sebastien Giguere	Toronto	9,944
Niklas Backstrom	Minnesota	9,421
Miikka Kiprusoff	Calgary	7,615
Ilya Bryzgalov	Phoenix	7,292
Pekka Rinne	Nashville	6,825
*Jonas Hiller	Anaheim	5,929
*Antero Niittymaki	San Jose	5,882
Nikolai Khabibulin	Edmonton	3,778
Tomas Vokoun	Florida	3,385
* Write-in vote