This past weekend saw the NHL and Toronto put on the annual All-Star festivities. With an All-Star Game draft, that hasn’t been seen since 2015, a revamped Skills Competition where only twelve players participate for a one million dollar prize, and finally the actual tournament where four teams play to become the champions, it was a pretty eventful week for both of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Let’s recap these events one by one.
The All-Star Game draft
First up was the Fantasy Draft on Thursday night. The draft saw four captains (McDavid, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, and Jack Hughes) along with one assistant captain (Draisaitl) and one celebrity captain (Will Arnett) draft their own teams in a snake draft. This format was beloved back in 2015 and they brought it back in Toronto.
McDavid had the fourth pick. With his first selection, they took goaltender Connor Hellebuyck from the Winnipeg Jets. With it being a snake draft, this meant McDavid and his team also held the fifth pick, they used it to select Boston Bruins star David Pastrnak. McDavid’s next few selection consisted of the likes of Buffalo Sabres defenceman Rasmus Dahlin, St. Louis Blues forward Robert Thomas, and the almost 40-goal scorer on the Florida Panthers in Sam Reinhart.
McDavid then took his second goalie in a bit of a funny moment, as he called Sergei Bobrovsky, “Sam.” To round off his picks, in a bit of a shocker, McDavid, Draisaitl and Arnett elected to go with the Columbus Blue Jackets’ captain Boone Jenner, Canadiens’ captain Nick Suzuki, and Tomas Hertl joined at the very end.
The skills competition
The skills competition was a little different this year. As previously mentioned, only twelve skaters participated in it. The top eight advance after playing in four out of the six first rounds, the top six after that advance to the final round where the champion is crowned.
The first event was the fastest skater which saw McDavid win for his fourth time. He set the fastest time at 13.408 seconds. The next event was the “NHL One Timers” which saw Draisaitl take third place with 22 points. Both McDavid and Draisaitl finished near the bottom in the “Passing Challenge” and neither took a shot at the Hardest Shot challenge.
Probably the most fun event of the night was the “Stickhandling Event.” McDavid won convincingly with a time of 25.755 seconds, while Draisaitl took fifth place with a time of 28.677 seconds. The final event before the top eight moved on was the “Accuracy Shooting” event. McDavid, once again, won with a time of 9.158 seconds, with Matthews just a few milliseconds off. Draisaitl…. well…. finished last by a landslide with a time of 46.089. At the end of the round, McDavid was moving on and Draisaitl was not.
At this point, McDavid is in sole possession of first place. However, he didn’t fare well in the “one-on-one” challenge, finishing seventh in the event, just ahead of MacKinnon. But, McDavid was so dominant in the past events that he still moved onto the finals.
The final event was the “Obstacle Course Relay” which saw McDavid, Cale Makar, Matt Barzal, J.T. Miller, William Nylander, and Matthews and take charge. McDavid was last up and had to beat Makar’s 43.453 to win the challenge, but only had to beat Miller’s time to win the entire competition. That he did, with a time of 40.606, he smoked everyone and ended up winning $1M.
The All-Star Game
The final event was the actual All-Star Game. Team McDavid played Team MacKinnon first. It was a tough start for McDavid’s team at first. MacKinnon grabbed an early goal assisted by Sidney Crosby and Makar as he beat Hellebuyck on the breakway. Jenner would tie it up moments after on a nice two-on-one passing play with Suzuki.
In the last period, in a span of 40 seconds, Oliver Bjorkstrand would put MacKinnon’s team up by one and then MacKinnon himself would make it a two-goal lead with a beautiful backhand shot upstairs on Bobrovsky. Coach Peter Laviolette decided to pull the goaltender. With McDavid, Pastrnak, Draisaitl, and Reinhart all on the ice, they converted one with 30 seconds to go to get within one goal. With under 10 seconds remaining, Draisaitl perfectly waited for Pastrnak to get open, sent him a pass, to which Pastrnak immediately dished off to McDavid for an easy tap in to tie the game.
So we head to the shootout now. McDavid’s team went first and the captain himself beat Jeremy Swayman to take the lead. Crosby, Draisaitl, and MacKinnon all were stopped on their attempts. Next up was Pastrnak. If he scored, Team McDavid would be off to the finals. Against his own teammate in Swayman, Pastrnak with a dirty snap shot went past Swayman and Team McDavid won the game. They would have to wait and see who they would play between Team Matthews and Team Hughes.
Team Matthews ended up winning and were set to face off against Team McDavid. The result wasn’t pretty however. Team McDavid ended up losing 7–4. Matthews scored two beautiful goals of his own, Filip Forsberg and Alex Debrincat who were amazing against Team Hughes, got on the board, and Mitch Marner and Nylander created chances all game, one of which Bobrovsky made an excellent stop on.
On Team McDavid’s side, Jenner, who ends up being tied as the leading goal scorer on the team, scored first. Draisaitl and Pastrnak potted one each in the first frame, as well as being within 18 seconds of each other. In the final frame, Tomas Hertl got their lone goal. It wasn’t enough of course and Team McDavid lost. Matthews was named MVP of the All-Star Game and all together won $1M, set to go to charity.
Despite the loss, McDavid and Draisaitl had a pretty solid All-Star weekend, potentially their last until 2027. Let’s hope that one day, we can see these two play in the All-Star Game at Rogers Place.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
