NHL All-Star Skills Challenge Preview
On Friday, the best talents in the NHL will all be in Florida for the 2023 All Star Game, but before they play their games with the chance of winning a Honda, the players will partake in the All-Star Skills Competition.
This year’s skills competition will feature the following events: Splash Shot, Pitch N’ Puck, Tendy Tandem, Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Breakaway Challenge and Accuracy Shooting.
Splash Shot, Pitch N’ Puck and Tendy Tandem will all be making their debuts at the skills competition.
In Splash Shot, two players will be paired as a team, and one will be in a dunk tank while one will be a shooter.
The shooter must hit all their targets before they attempt to dunk the opponent first in order to win the matchup and it will feature four teams in a tournament style play.
Pitch N’ Puck is a new addition that combines hockey skills with those of golf.
Six players will use different golf and hockey shots on a par four course and the lowest score will win, but if there is a tie then the player who had the longest drive with the lowest score will win.
Goaltenders are usually the ones stopping the shots but in the Tendy Tandem there will be a goaltender trying to make the shot.
First one goaltender from each division will try to make a shot into the designated holes and then the other goaltender will face breakaway shots from one to three opposing players depending on how well the shooting goaltender does.
The fastest skater competition is straightforward as players will skate around the rink to see who is the fastest.
There will be four participants and two rounds, the two with the lowest times advance to the finals.
Last year, Blues forward Jordan Kyrou won the competition by a small margin over Adrian Kempe.
The fastest shot competition which was basically the Zdeno Chara invitational for a while will be a competition of who has the hardest shot out of the four competitors.
Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning won this competition last year.
Trevor Zegras and Jack Hughes stole the show at last year’s breakaway challenge even though Alex Pietrangelo won it as the hometown player.
There will be a minimum of four players participating in a breakaway shot and a panel of judges will rate the shots.
Accuracy shooting is another classic game as players will attempt to hit five targets in the net while two passers feed them the puck.
The player who knocks them all out in the least amount of time wins.
Sebastian Aho of the Carolina Hurricanes won this event last year.
Noticeably missing this year is the save streak event where goaltenders faced shooters in breakaway style in hopes of stopping the most pucks in a row.
James Morrison is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jpm6920@psu.edu.
