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The NHL set up the All-Star skills competition and all it took was the right reward.
Specifically, it took $1 million, which was the prize offered to the winner of Friday’s 12-man showdown. There was also an additional $100,000 available for the top goalie. And that, along with the various format changes, seems to have made a difference. The players seemed committed. In fact they tried. Well, almost all of them, but we’ll get to that.
The bottom line is that these guys apparently respond to the promise of the right reward. Well, then I’m in. Let’s hand out some more.
Since the current generation of gamers wants to be bribed rewarded for your hard work, let’s keep the good vibes going. I can’t offer another million because I spent it all on buying a souvenir hat for my kids, but I can be creative. Let’s hand out 15 awards for the best and worst of All-Star weekend so far, based on some of the event’s previous memorable moments.
The “Mario Lemieux scores four goals in Pittsburgh” award for the most predictable result that was still great
To Connor McDavid, who was four out of four in the precision shooting competition. Look, I’m old and cynical and I complain about everything, but I’ll always choose an old-fashioned four-by-four. Especially when they’re smashing Styrofoam targets, which they wisely brought back. If the hockey gods love us, they will deliver one (and only one) perfect performance every year.
The “Fox Glow Puck Award” for technical innovation
To that special four-box goal light they used to shoot accurately. When you need to score four goals in quick succession, you now have a solution. Let’s get one of those in San Jose for the final stretch.
(And yes, the luminous disk was fine. It’s been almost 30 years and it’s time to admit it.)
“Phil Kessel Sits Alone” Award for Most Awkward Moment
To Elias Pettersson, who was wiped out during the baton-wielding event and crashed into a poster of… himself.
Yeah, I don’t know why they put them there either. But it was worth it, because watching a guy cut his face in a million-dollar competition was strangely satisfying.
(Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. It’s not like he’ll ever have to worry about meeting anyone.) Another Elías Pettersson with the Canucks.)
“John Garrett’s Stolen Truck” Award for the Unexpected Hero Who Wasn’t Even Supposed to Be There
To Connor Bedard, the injured Blackhawks rookie who still showed up over the weekend and participated in the one-off competition along with Sidney Crosby. They were the two quarterbacks and, well, Bedard kicked the old man’s ass, feeding the two best scorers of the event.
And here’s my favorite part about this: You know Crosby will be secretly furious about this for years. A fun secret about every highly successful athlete is that they are all wildly hyper-competitive. They’d straight up choke a guy for playing football before the game during training camp, so you know Crosby is going to lose sleep over getting hit by a teenager. He will probably have Auston Matthews come to Cole Harbor and run workouts in the offseason.
Alexander Ovechkin’s Magically Refilling Solo Cup Award for Unluckiest Inanimate Object
To the time in the test of the fastest skater, who failed in the first attempt of the first test of the night. William Nylander crossed the finish line and the clock was still counting. Somewhere, Nylander’s lap is still beating.
It was a good reminder that it was still an NHL event and something would go wrong. Luckily, they mostly fixed the glitches early, even tempting fate with some random lighting obstacles in the finale that everyone assumed would fail but didn’t.
The “Al Iafrate reveals that he has a skull” award so we will most likely remember this in 30 years
To Michael Bublé, for taking mushrooms in the draft. Yes I know, he later denied it. Too bad, Michael, we’re not here to let the truth get in the way of a good story.
The “Owen Nolan points in the corner” award for a good moment made it big
On to the one-on-one competition, which was a lot of fun in its own right but was made even better when the players selected the goalkeeper they would face. That led Nylander to take the Kings’ Cam Talbot with the first pick, and then explain that it was because, and I quote, “This guy has been so bad the last few weeks that his coach was just fired.”
Wait, I’m told he actually said it was because Talbot was in front of him. But we all knew what he meant and we loved him for it. (Also, Nylander proceeded to light Talbot as if he were a landing strip on a foggy night, so you can’t say he made a bad choice.)
Seriously, this event was a success. The highlight of the night.
There was even the “Vincent Damphousse scores four goals” award for the best performance by someone you almost forgot was there.
Mathew Barzal, who may not be a McDavid/MacKinnon-level megastar, but who showed up to play and almost won it all. He placed second in the fastest skater competition, scored well in the passing challenge, and then almost won in stickhandling. It all came crashing down in the finale, when he crashed into the dreaded mini-nets and did so poorly that they had to scramble to find extra pucks so he wouldn’t run out. It was a little painful to watch, but overall he had a great night.
The “Almost every player in an All-Star Game in the last 10 years” award for the complete lack of effort from someone who clearly didn’t want to be there
It was going to be tough to beat Justin Bieber here, but in a surprise, we’ll give this one to Nikita Kucherov getting booed for basically giving up half of the passing contest, almost randomly throwing pucks in the general direction of the target as he goes from one station to the next with all the urgency of a Jason Allison penalty kick.
Then it happened again, after he lost the puck during the stickhandling event and pulled the chute once again. He ended up finishing last overall and was presumably not wearing a uniform and was removing tires from the building about eight seconds later.
What was your deal? I guess after finishing last in the single event, he knew he wasn’t going to win the million and decided to close the deal for the rest of the night. And in a way I understand it. But buddy, when you get booed for not trying at a famous showcase event because no one tried, maybe raise the bar.
“Dylan Larkin’s Good Start” Award for a Controversy We Can All Get Too Angry About
To the annulment of David Pastrnak’s victory in the one-time competition after making a mistake in the score. We thought he had beaten Nathan MacKinnon by a single point with a dramatic final shot, but apparently not. Instead, we received a half-hearted scoring correction during a break.
Shout out to the Bruins video coach who caught that on the freeze-frame and told his team to challenge.
The “Erik Karlsson dresses up as a pirate to go to the Lightning” award for a minor thing we can all read too much into
To Team Hughes, who ended up with five of the six Canucks available in Thursday’s draft. Co-captains Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson made sure to add Thatcher Demko, JT Miller and Brock Boeser.
The only Canuck they didn’t take? The new guy, Elias Lindholm, who the team had just traded for. Because? Because, very obviously, they reject it. Lindholm is the kid who just transferred to the school, and the other kids won’t let him sit at the lunch table with them because they say he still has Calgary Flames loser cooties all over him.
Between that and Pettersson being eliminated from the skills competition because JT Miller had the tiebreaker, it’s safe to say the Canucks are a fractured team right now. Can they recover in time for the playoffs? We’ll have to find out, but no, they can’t.
The “Nick Foligno as All-Star captain” award for perhaps going too far on the local pimping issue.
Special guest quarterback Steve “Stumpy” Thomas, huh? Of course, why not? Especially if Motor City Smitty and Ken Yaremchuk weren’t available.
The “Wayne Messmer Sings the Anthem” Award for Best Performance by a Non-Player
To the guys who had to set up, tear down and occasionally move the stage we apparently needed to have on the ice all night. The event started with a musical performance by someone you haven’t heard of because you’re either cool or old, and the NHL doesn’t know of any bands that either of those demographics like. Once it was over, we all wondered if they were really going to do the entire competition with a stage at center ice. No. The team accelerated and knocked everything down faster than Kyle Davidson. Good job by everyone involved.
The “Wayne Gretzky’s Third Period Explosion of 1983” Award for Undeniable Greatness in Goal
To Petterson, who stole the passing challenge with a spectacular three-of-three finish.
Honestly, the passing event is a good idea that didn’t really seem to be working. There were too many competitors, the scoring rules were a little confusing, and you couldn’t always tell which attempts hit the mark and which just missed. The crowd seemed to be checking.
And then Pettersson controlled them again, went into the final stretch trailing by eight points and then hit the three-point goal with three shots in a row. He got a genuine reaction from the fans and also from the players.
(Needless to say, we also ended up getting a replay review of this case to determine if time had expired. If it had been overturned, I would go down to the ice to fight with the referee. Fortunately, sanity prevailed and I have to keep a cool moment.)
And finally, “Ray Bourque scores the winner in Boston” for the most obvious but appropriate ending.
To McDavid for winning it all, which was fitting since he was the one who designed it.
He is also the best player in the world by far, and Friday was another reminder. Yeah, it turns out that when you eliminate most of the silly tricks and just turn everything into a hockey competition where guys actually try, it’s probably going to be won by the super-fast guy with incredibly good puck skills and puck-like accuracy. laser. Hey. Who knows?
But overall… I have to be honest, I kind of liked it. The revamped competition certainly wasn’t perfect and had some embarrassing moments. But it was also fun, it wasn’t too heavy, and I felt like the players cared. And at the end, the best player gave him an exclamation point.
I’ll call it a victory. And if the players have any competitiveness left for Saturday, we might even have some decent games. Hey, it could happen. At the very least, we know that Kucherov saved energy.
(Connor McDavid Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)