All-Star games are exhibitions for the fans and they rightly deserve to participate by casting their vote. But while we can genuinely respect the votes and the opinions of the votes, they also sometimes provide immeasurable comedic value to those involved in the sport. Fan voting is kind of like the sport world equivalent of third-hand smoke. Take this year's NHL All-Star Game voting in which four teams represent the 12 starters. The Canadiens have four players in the starting line-up, while the Ducks and Blackhawks have three apiece and the Penguins have two. Chicago and Anaheim are currently ranked fourth and sixth respectively in the Western Conference, while Montreal is fourth in the Eastern Conference and Pittsburgh is ninth. San Jose and Boston have been the two best teams in the NHL, while defending champion Detroit is not far off their pace. Removing the ballot-box-stuffing-fans from the equation, I took a look at the current rankings from my Ice Impact Counter to determine the deserving All-Star starters in the most objective way possible. The Ice Impact Counter (IIC) is a statistical formula I developed in order to give certain weights to things like even goals, shorthanded goals, assists, plus/minus totals, while taking efficiency into consideration. Click here for more information on the Ice Impact Counter Who deserves to be the starting six from each conference Western Conference F: Joe Thornton, SJS: 91.9 F: Patrick Marleau, SJS: 78.6 F: Pavel Datsyuk, DET: 72.6 D: Brian Rafalski, DET: 84.3 D: Dan Boyle, SJS: 77.0 G: Niklas Backstrom, MIN: 77.2 Eastern Conference F: Evgeni Malkin, PIT: 98.0 F: David Krejci, BOS: 97.7 F: Marc Savard, BOS: 86.7 D: Dennis Wideman, BOS: 90.6 D: Mike Green, WSH: 69.8 G: Tim Thomas, BOS: 67.1 - The fans were one for 12 in their voting, not missing on Malkin who has been the NHL's best IIC player thus far during the 2008-09 season. Who are the actual starting six from each conference and how do they rank overall at their position? Western Conference F: Patrick Kane, CHI: 57.5 (26th) F: Jonathan Toews, CHI: 37.5 (64th) F: Ryan Getzlaf, ANA: 47.9 (36th) D: Brian Campbell, CHI: 75.5 (4th) D: Scott Niedermayer, ANA: 31.3 (37th) G: Jean-Sebastien Giguere, ANA: 43.2 (19th) Eastern Conference F: Sidney Crosby, PIT: 68.7 (13th) F: Evgeni Malkin, PIT: 98.0 (1st) F: Alexei Kovalev, MON: 28.1 (91st) D: Andrei Markov, MON: 67.4 (8th) D: Mike Komisarek, MON: -4.4 (223rd) G: Casey Price, MON: 56.0 (7th) Kane and Toews are nice young players, but they really can't come close to touching the kind of seasons the pair of Sharks and Datsyuk are having. Even Daniel Sedin from the Canucks and Devin Steoguchi are more deserving. The Campbell signing has worked out phenomenally for Chicago and he is right with Rafalksi and Boyle amongst Western Conference blue liners. No name amongst defensemen is bigger than Nicklas Lidstrom, who is sixth overall and would have made a much better choice than Niedermayer if not Boyle and Rafalski. Backstrom has been excellent for the Wild and Giguere hasn't even been the best goalie on his team, as Jonas Hiller has three shutouts and a .933 save percentage for the Ducks. If you take away all of Crosby's penalty minutes accrued from last week's fight with Andrew Ference, then he really isn't too far off of Malkin and Krejci. He is the face of hockey and so there are no legitimate objections here while I politely highlight the very fine play of Bruins' Krejci and Savard. Kovalev, like Komisarek (particularly Komisarek) don't belong anywhere near the All-Star Game this season. Markov and Price, however, have both been playing All-Star caliber hockey for Montreal. Click here to vote for which omitted player was most deserving of getting a starting nod - Chris Reina is the executive editor of RealGM