On the John Scott Trade and the NHL All-Star Game

I really don’t care if John Scott plays in the NHL All-Star Game. In all likelihood, I wasn’t going to watch it anyway.

I do, however, think what happened to him today is low even by NHL standards.

Scott, who has played a grand total of 11 games for the Arizona Coyotes this season, was voted by fans as the Pacific Division’s captain at the 2016 NHL All-Star Game. The journeyman enforcer, hailed as the last of a dying breed, stated that he would not decline to participate and would instead go to Nashville so that his family could have the All-Star Weekend experience.

His family will seemingly not have that opportunity. On Friday the Coyotes traded Scott to the Atlantic Division’s Montreal Canadiens, who promptly demoted him to the St. John’s Ice Caps of the American Hockey League, making his appearance at the All-Star Game highly unlikely.

In the wake of the deal, TSN’s Bob McKenzie reported that Scott had been asked repeatedly to decline his invitation to the All-Star Game.

John Scott was previously asked by both NHL and Arizona Coyotes to bow out of NHL All-Star Game. He refused. Trade likely takes care of that
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) January 15, 2016

John Scott wanted to take his family – including his pregnant wife – to Nashville for an experience they shouldn’t have been able to have. Instead, that has been taken away from them and he’s been traded to the NHL team with the AHL affiliate furthest from Glendale and his family. It’s hard not to say that he’s been banished.

The league asked the fans to vote for who they wanted to see at the All-Star Game. They responded by voting in John Scott. The league didn’t like it and Scott wouldn’t decline the opportunity, so he has been punished.