Voters Love Red Wings

Forward Brendan Shanahan leads a group of four Detroit Red Wings in line for the six starting positions for the North America team in voting to determine the lineups for the NHL All-Star game.

Shanahan tops all North America players with 103,606 votes in the fan balloting.

Teammates Steve Yzerman (center), Larry Murphy (defense) and Chris Osgood (goaltender) also are leading their respective races.

The Red Wings also have three players leading the voting for the World team--center Sergei Fedorov and defensemen Nicklas Lidstrom and Uwe Krupp--giving Red Wing players the lead in seven of the 12 starting positions for the Jan. 24 game at Tampa.

Others leading for starting positions with the North America team: Duck forward Paul Kariya and Boston Bruin defenseman Ray Bourque.

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Rod Brind’Amour can’t understand the interest in his streak of 430 consecutive games, the longest active stretch in the NHL.

The Philadelphia Flyer center took over the No. 1 spot on Saturday night. Mark Recchi of the Montreal Canadiens has pneumonia and ended his league-leading streak at 570, which is eighth in league history but far short of the NHL record held by Doug Jarvis, who played 964 straight games in the ‘80s.

Brind’Amour has played every game for nearly six years--since sitting out on Feb. 22, 1993.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “It’s just responsibility more than anything.”