Three star selections

There are a few things that stand out from Montreal's 2-1 shootout loss to the Bruins on Thursday night.

I thought Scott Gomez had a pretty good game, particularly his penalty killing at the end of regulation. Jaroslav Halak showed he's ready to push Carey Price this season and step in at the slightest sign of faltering from the anointed No. 1 goalie. The Canadiens penalty-killing as a whole was extremely good, though the discipline was not.

But what has me somewhat irked tonight, and I want to get it off my chest, is the three star selections.

This is not of huge importance, other than the fact a trophy is given out at the end of the season based it. But sometime last year, the Canadiens suddenly stopped asking one of the regular journalists covering the team to make the picks. Back when that was the case, you knew who made the selections, so that if one of them was completely out of whack you could at least rile them a little about it afterwards.

Now it has become an ambiguous body making the selections called "Montreal Media," which really means RDS. But after tonight, I'm convinced it's actually the Montreal Canadiens hockey operations department that is making these selections.

How else do you explain Ryan O'Byrne being named the second star of this game? Yes, he played a pretty good game, didn't make any glaring errors, laid the body a little bit, but second star? Then, lo and behold, as soon as the Habs room opened up to reporters, who is front and centre? Ryan O'Byrne, who was feeling pretty darn good about himself.

For a player who clearly lost all confidence last year and relies on that self-assurance to fuel his game, does anyone honestly believe that a member of the Canadiens did not have O'Byrne's name inserted as the second star in the hopes it would give him a confidence boost? Am I being paranoid?

Who really cares about the three star selections anyway, right? Well, I remember when I was a kid, I stayed glued to the TV after each and every game to know who would be named the three stars of the game, and also to watch as they took a twirl around the ice. It was pretty important to me then, just as I would imagine it's pretty important to this generation of kids as well.

In that light, it would be nice if the Canadiens took it just as seriously.

That's my rant on this subject, and you will never hear me refer to the Three Stars ever again.