First of all.... Happy New Year to you all. I'm happy to be back with the team after a short hiatus when they went West and I went North to visit Sarah's family.

I re-joined the team in Washington last night and needed to get my feet wet again before getting back to the blog.

Anyway, what a game. Best game of the year - even though the Flyers lost. That's hockey at it's best. Both teams were sensational. The Flyers and Caps really match up well against one another. I wish they could play each other more often.

Anyone in favor of an Eastern Conference Final?

Anyway.... back to the headline of this blog.

Today the NHL All-Star teams will be finalized and the Flyers deserve to have four players in the game.

Hell, if the Montreal Canadiens can have four players start, three of which don't even deserve to be on the team to begin with, then the Flyers should have four players make the squad based on performance.

Jeff Carter is a definite. He leads the league in goals and is in the top 10 in points.

Mike Richards should be too.

The big questions are Simon Gagne and Kimmo Timonen, but there's no doubt they both deserve it.

Gagne is averaging a point per game and leads the league in plus/minus. He may be the best two-way player in the East.

As for Timonen, he is incredibly underappreciated, and yet, he's one of the top five defensemen in the game in my book.

He's a disciplined defensive warrior and offensively skilled at the same time.

He deserves to go ahead of both starters (Montreal's Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek).

Problem is, there needs to be at least one player from each team, which could leave Timonen and Gagne on the outs.

That would be an injustice. The Flyers are a first place team for a reason. Gagne and Timonen are two of the four biggest reasons this season.