NHL All-Star Skills Competition Recap and Reaction

The 2023 NHL all-star skills competition took place tonight to a medium amount of fanfare. 

Let's take a look at each challenge. 

Splash Shot

Contestants: Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen (COL), Sidney Crosby (PIT) and Nathan MacKinnon (COL), Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox (NYR), Brady Tkachuk (OTT) and Matthew Tkachuk (FLA)

Winner: Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen 

I don't care if the NHL holds the next All-Star Game in the Arctic Circle. This needs to be a mainstay event. 

Splash Shot captured the vibe of South Florida perfectly, allowing the players to clearly have the most fun of any challenge they participated in and showcasing their personalities to a delightful extent. 

Not to mention, it was pre-taped, meaning the broadcast could edit out any awkwardness and allow the whole thing to roll smoothly. 

Makar labelling his victory as the NHL achievement he covets the most should say it all. 

Upper Deck Fastest Skater 

Contestants: Cale Makar (COL), Kevin Fiala (LAK), Andrei Svechnikov (CAR), Chandler Stephenson (VGK), Dylan Larkin (DET)

Winner: Andrei Svechnikov

The final round of the Fastest Skater challenge was held so long after the event first started that I honestly forgot a lot about what actually happened. 

Cale Makar fell in his first and only lap, losing his footing at full speed without a helmet in a moment that is sure to have made Joe Sakic freeze. Aside from that, the challenge came precisely as advertised, featuring a bunch of NHLers skating really, really fast. 

The one interesting tidbit was that former winner Dylan Larkin, who once beat McDavid, finished a dismal fifth and failed to make the final. Maybe Larkin isn't as fleet of foot as he approaches his late-20s – old age by hockey standards. 

In the end, Svechnikov took home the title of fastest skater with an absolutely blistering lap that came in under 14 seconds. The guy is going to get the reputation as a speedster now. Is he ready for that responsibility? 

"No," answered Svechnkikov. 

Very cool!

Great Clips Breakaway Challenge 

Contestants: Mitch Marner (TOR), David Pastrnak (BOS), Sidney Crosby (PIT) and Alexander Ovechkin (WSH), Matthew Tkachuk (FLA) and Brady Tkachuk (OTT)

Winner: Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin 

At the very least, every contestant put a ton of effort into this event. 

Mitch Marner came out in a full Miami Vice outfit, David Pastrnak channelled Happy Gilmore, and Matthew Tkachuk embraced the beach theme by bringing out his brother Brady, former Panther Roberto Luongo, current Panther Alexander Barkov, and Miami Dolphins captain Christian Wilkins. 

No one, however, could compete with the majesty of Crosby and Ovechkin. Add in Ovechkin's son Sergei, who was the star of all-star weekend, and you have a crowd-pleaser for the ages. 

The winning attempt was pretty basic. Both Crosby and Ovechkin carried the puck in while passing back and forth. But it was their drop pass to Sergei, who was calling frantically for the puck, who then tucked it into the net, that sealed the deal. 

Having two of the greatest players of all-time, heated rivals turned friends, team up at the NHL's premier mid-season event was perfect. 

Pitch 'n Puck

Contestants: Nick Suzuki (MTL), Clayton Keller (ARI), Jason Robertson (DAL), Johnny Gaudreau (CBJ)

Winner: Nick Suzuki

One of the two pre-taped events, Pitch 'n Puck had the benefit of being edited down to the best parts. And, frankly, that made it quite entertaining. 

Given the Florida location and hockey players' inclination for golf, infusing the two sports together was a no-brainer, and the results paid off. With Happy Gilmore vibes apparent, the quartet of contestants all put their respective backs into their drives, ripping white pucks onto the green to varying degrees of success. 

Suzuki was a leg above the rest for the entire event, nailing his drive to kick things off and then showing some adept care in his short game to end up victorious. 

Hopefully, this will point the NHL in the direction of using their host city to their advantage in future all-star weekends, adding a very needed shot in the arm to a rapidly stale skills competition. 

Tendy Tandem

Goalie Contestants: Juuse Saros (NSH), Connor Hellebuyck (WIN), Stuart Skinner (EDM), Logan Thompson (VGK), Ilya Sorokin (NYI), Igor Shesterkin (NYR), Linus Ullmark (BOS), Andrei Vasilevskiy (TBL) 

Winner: Juuse Saros and Connor Hellebuyck 

The NHL took a big swing with Tendy Tandem, introducing the event for the first time this year in the hopes that incorporating every player in attendance – from the goaltenders to the women's players to the skaters – would inject some life into the skills competition. 

Instead, it sucked it right out. 

Tendy Tandem was doomed to fail from the beginning thanks to the event featuring a set of rules roughly the length of a mid-tier Stephen King novel that precisely no one in the building or watching at home understood. 

There were a few highlights, however. Sarah Nurse pulled off a Forsberg breakaway move against Rangers netminder Igor Shesterkin to the delight of the South Florida faithful, and Juuse Saros and Stuart Skinner scored a goalie goal. 

Other than that, though, this one was a flop. Saros and Connor Hellbuyck took home the top prize for the Central Division, which is cool, I guess. 

Accuracy Challenge

Contestants: Nazem Kadri (CGY), Nikita Kucherov (TBL), Artemiy Panarin (NYR), Brock Nelson (NYI), Leon Draisaitl (EDM), Vladimir Tarasenko (STL), Kevin Hayes (PHI), Alexander Barkov (FLA), Connor McDavid (EDM)

Winner: Brock Nelson

Credit where credit's due: the accuracy challenge featured pretty much the only dose of drama on the night, with Nazem Kadri narrowly beating Connor McDavid to book a trip to the final. 

For the most part, though, the attempts went one of two ways: the player in question knocked down the targets with intense accuracy in under 16 seconds, or they got stuck on one of the first two and kept trying until the event politely ended.

Brock Nelson's strategy of shooting the puck as softly as possible was certainly a choice. It worked, of course. It just wasn't too entertaining. 

The name of the game isn't velocity, though. And Nelson managed to out-aim arguably the best player to ever lace up skates. Not too shabby. 

Hardest Shot

Contestants: Elias Pettersson (VAN), Josh Morrissey (WPG), Seth Jones (CHI), Alexander Ovechkin (WSH)

Winner: Elias Pettersson

The challenge required four NHL players to shoot the puck as hard as they can. Elias Pettersson shot it the hardest. Therefore, he was the winner. 

That's basically it. A remarkably simple event that fit the bill.