24 years later the NHL All-Star game returned to Toronto for a weekend full of great events, featuring the best players in the world.
The events started with a draft on Thursday, where the four captains Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Jack Hughes and Nathan MacKinnon partnered up with their fellow assistant captains Morgan Rielly, Leon Draisaitl, Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar to pick from the remaining 36 all-stars and build the best team possible.
Each team was also joined by a celebrity as Justin Bieber (team Matthews), Will Arnett (team McDavid), Michael Buble (team Hughes) and Tate McRae (team MacKinnon) were all in attendance to help make and announce picks.
Some of the noteworthy picks included team Matthews picking the other two Maple Leafs available, Mitch Marner and William Nylander. Team Hughes also picked most Vancouver Canucks players available adding Elias Petterson, Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko and J.T. Miller to the squad while leaving newly acquired Canuck Elias Lindholm to be picked by team MacKinnon.
The Friday night featured a newly implemented skills competition with just 12 participants and eight events, six of which determined who moved onto the last two.
The first six were: Fastest skater, One timer, Passing challenge, Hardest shot, Stick handling and accuracy shooting. The winners for the first six events were as follows:
Fastest skater: Connor McDavid, 13.408 seconds
One timer: Nathan MacKinnon, 23 points
Passing challenge: Elias Petterson, 25 points
Hardest shot: Cale Makar, 102.56 MPH
Stickhandling: Connor McDavid, 25.775 seconds
Accuracy shooting: Connor McDavid, 9.158 seconds
After the six competitions, four players were eliminated. The remaining eight feature both Maple Leafs, Auston Matthews and William Nylander alongside J.T. Miller, Cale Makar, Matthew Barzal, Elias Petterson, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid.
The next two competitions featured the all-star goalies and was regarded as the “best event of the night”. Each shooter picked one of the eight goalies to go against and they had the opportunity to score as many goals using the provided amount of pucks. The competition showcased the forward’s high skill level and the goalies’ ability to make flashy saves. The Maple Leafs’ William Nylander won this round finishing with nine points in the competition.
Heading into the last event, the obstacle course, Connor McDavid had the most overall points in the competition with 15 followed by Cale Makar with 12 points, setting up a riveting finish with the best.
Makar held the lead with a time of 43.435 seconds until the last skater, McDavid, had his turn at the compeition. McDavid showed up Makar and the rest of the competition by beating his time by nearly three full seconds, posting a time of 40.606 seconds.
This secured the win for McDavid in the whole competition and he took home the one million dollar prize.
The final day of festivities featured a three on three tournament between the four teams. A three game tournament that saw team McDavid make a miraculous comeback against team MacKinnon, scoring two late goals to tie the game and send it to a shootout where they eventually won the game in three rounds.
The second game featured team Matthews vs team Hughes. This game was played at a higher intensity than the previous game as Matthews and his leafs teammates wanted to put on a show for the home crowd. The game ended 5-5 in regulation and needed a shootout. Both goalies stopped the first three shots before Alex Deprincat (team Matthews) scored what ended up being the game winner after a Jake Oettinger flying poke check sealed the deal.
The finals were set, team Matthews vs team McDavid. Both teams put on a show for the fans scoring three goals each in the first half. But team Matthews dominated the second half as Filip Forsberg scored a quick one to start the half less than a minute in, followed by a Matthews one timer to make it 5-3.
Team McDavid tried to climb back but a late empty netter from Alex Deprincat sealed the deal for team Matthews and capped off an incredible all star weekend. Auston Matthews was named tournament MVP and the team was awarded a one million dollar cheque.
Next year the All-Star break will deviate from the usual format and will feature a best-on-best interantion tournament with four countries participating (Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland). A host city has yet to officilaly announced, but it is rumoured to take place in Montreal and Boston.
For more information on this year’s NHL All-Star game and next year’s international based tournament, visit NHL.com.