What is the NHL All-Star Weekend event?

NHL All-Star Weekend is an annual event that showcases numerous challenges, and a three-game tournament featuring teams from each division. At least one player from each team is selected to be an NHL All-Star. The three-game tournament starts with the Pacific Division against the Metropolitan Division and then goes the Atlantic Division against the Central Division. This event doesn’t affect the current NHL standings. In the end, the team that wins the three-game tournament gets $1,000,000.

Three-Game Tournament

The All-Star game was held at the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas. Based on fan votings, Alex Ovechkin was selected as captain for the Metropolitan Division, Auston Matthews for the Atlantic Division,  Nathan Mackinnon for the Central Division, and Connor McDavid for the Pacific Division. The Results of the All-Star Game ended with Metro 6, Pacific 4, and Central 8, Atlantic 5. Leading the final game with Metro against Central. The final score was Metro 5, Central 3. The Metropolitan Division ended up victorious in the three-game tournament.  

Challenges and Winners

The skills competition included 7 different challenges. The first challenge was the “fastest skater” with the winner being Jordan Kyrou from the St.Louis Blues. “Save Streak” was the next challenge with the winners being Jack Campbell and Andrei Vasilevskiy (Atlantic Division). The next challenge was “fountain face-off”. This challenge included 8 players who will take a boat in front of the Bellagio and see who can shoot pucks into five targets in the least amount of time. The winner was  Zach Werenski (Columbus Blue Jackets). Next was the “Hardest shot” with the winner being Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning) with a shot of 103.2 mph! Next was “The Breakaway challenge” which is a prop comedy trick shot event. The winner was Alex Pietrangelo (Vegas Golden Knights) with a score of 19 from the judges. The next challenge was “21 in 22” which is a game of chance, strategy, and skill. There is a deck of oversized cards on a rack and the player’s objective is to achieve a hand of 21 without going over in the least amount of shots. The winner was Joe Pavelski (Dallas Stars). The last challenge was “Accuracy shooting” with the winner being Sebastian Aho (Carolina Hurricanes).

Best moments  

According to nhl.com, these were some of the best moments in no particular order.

1.“Kyrou’s speed” – This was Jordans Kyrous’s first appearance as an NHL All-Star and he did not disappoint when he got a time of 13.550. Considering that with this time he beat 7 other skaters including Connor McDavid (13.690) who won the event in 2017, 2018, and 2019. 

2. “Mascots Moving and Grooving”– A mascot dance-off happened in which the Metropolitan Division mascots danced to “Harlem Shake.” However, the winners of this dance-off were the Pacific Division mascots and Las Vegas showgirls who danced to “blinding lights” by the Weeknd.

3.“Zegras’ blindfolded breakaway”– As part of the breakaway challenge Trevor Zegras from the Anaheim ducks references the 2004 movie Dodgeball so Zegras wore an Average Joe’s Gym shirt and shorts. And in order to honor the movie he had to be blindfolded. Zegras ended up doing a spinning blindfolded goal while dodgeballs were thrown at him!