All-Star showcase’s events move outside
SUNRISE, Fla. — Sidney Crosby got dunked into a tank of water, Nick Suzuki holed a golf ball with a hockey stick and the NHL made hockey an outdoor sport for its skills showcase in South Florida.
Two new events outside in the sun highlighted the league’s annual skills competition at All-Star Weekend, with a handful of players taking turns hitting golf and hockey shots on a par-4 course and others shooting pucks at foam surfboards to dunk opponents with the beach in the background.
Inside the Florida Panthers’ home arena Friday night, Connor McDavid reminded fans and the other top players in the world why he leads the NHL in goals and is on pace to score more than 60. McDavid went 8-for-8 in the accuracy shooting competition, which was won by Brock Nelson of the New York Islanders.
“I wanted to show that I can do some other things,” McDavid said. “I wanted to do something to show I can shoot the puck a little bit.”
One of the biggest stars of the night was Alex Ovechkin’s 4-year-old son, Sergei, who joined his father and dad’s longtime rival Crosby to score in the breakaway challenge against Hall of Fame goaltender Roberto Luongo, the only player to have his number retired by the Panthers.
Montreal captain Nick Suzuki won the “Pitch ’n’ Puck” golf event in nearby Plantation, beating Arizona’s Clayton Keller, Dallas’ Jason Robertson and Columbus’ Johnny Gaudreau by draining a birdie putt with his hockey stick.
“It’s my first birdie of the year, so I’ll take that,” Suzuki said.
Seven months after winning the Stanley Cup together, Colorado’s Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen won the “Splash Shot” event that featured plenty of pucks sailing into the ocean off Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Coming off winning the Norris Trophy as top defenseman and the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP, Makar joked: “This one just tops it all, I feel like.”
Rantanen dunked Crosby, the three-time Cupwinning Pittsburgh Penguins captain who volunteered to take the plunge into the 5-foot tank and came up with the idea to do the event with good friend and fellow Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, native Nathan MacKinnon.
Canada women’s hockey star Sarah Nurse provided one of the top on-ice moments of the night by scoring on reigning New York Rangers Vezina Trophy-winner Igor Shesterkin.
Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov won the fastest skater competition with a lap of 13.69 seconds. The biggest moment of the event wasn’t Svechnikov winning but rather Makar wiping out while trying to skate around the net.
Nashville’s Juuse Saros and Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck won the new “Tendy Tandem” event in which goaltenders from the same division alternated shooting for the net from the other end of the rink and trying to make saves.
Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson won the hardest shot competition at 103.2 mph, giving the Canucks a rare victory in a tough season that has included them firing their coach and losing 29 of their first 49 games.