The Eastern conference leading Flyers will be sending just two players to the NFL All Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina and they'll be playing on opposite teams. The NHL latest gimmick to drum up interest in their all star game was to have two "captains" draft a teams from the pool of players selected for the game. The captains were Nick Lidstrom of the Red Wings and Erik Staal of the Hurricanes. Lidstrom drafted Danny Briere with the 12th overall pick while Staal took Claude Giroux with the 25th overall pick.
Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette was chosen as coach of Team Lidstrom. Before the draft, Giroux talked a bit about what would happen if he and Briere were drafted to separate teams.
"I think it would be pretty nice to play with him, but if I play against him, I know we're going to go pretty hard in the corners," Giroux said. "Really, he's one of the reasons why we're in first place (in the Eastern Conference) right now. He just finds a way to get those big goals in the third period. It just looks like it's easy for him to score goals. Anytime you got a guy like that who gets those big goals, it's huge."
↵Briere also mentioned some rough play in the corners, "We're both very competitive and there will be a lot of bragging rights back home with the boys, so I think it'll be a little intense (in the corners)"
↵The All Star Skills competition is tonight, while the game takes place at 4pm on Sunday.
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