Team Matthews Wins All-Star Final Over Team McDavid

Auston Matthews named MVP as the stars finished off the weekend with some 3-on-3 action and a win for Toronto fans.

In the end, the hometown crowd got what they wanted as Team Matthews, laden with Toronto Maple Leafs, walked away with the title at All-Star weekend, beating Team McDavid 7-4 in the final. That last game itself was a dream showdown, pitting Auston Matthews and his cohorts against Connor McDavid, who grew up in the Toronto area.

After two tight semifinal games, the championship tilt was pretty much over when Detroit's Alex DeBrincat scored an empty-netter to make the score 6-3, though Tomas Hertl and Mathew Barzal added tallies afterwards. Matthews, who was named MVP after the final, had a signature goal himself earlier on when former NTDP teammate Clayton Keller set him up for a devastating one-timer on a 2-on-1.

Undoubtedly it was nice for Team Matthews - which also featured Leafs Morgan Rielly, William Nylander and Mitch Marner - to get the All-Star title on home ice.

"It's been pretty special for me, growing up here," said Marner, who is also from the area. "We talked all weekend about how we wanted to be the winners. The cash prize helps obviously and the boys tried pretty hard for the win."

And it wasn't just the pressure of winning on home ice that Toronto players had to deal with; it was also the fact this was best-on-best.

"I was surprised with how nervous I was," Rielly said. "You get into that environment with so many elite players and you get some nerves."

In Team McDavid, the Matthews crew had excellent competition for the final. McDavid played on a line with fellow Oilers superstar Leon Draisaitl and David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins, himself a possible Hart Trophy contender this season. They often played against Matthews, Keller and Rielly, and in their first game, usually went out against Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby and Cale Makar, putting all the titans on the ice at the same time. Was this by design?

"All the coaches were in the same room," said Peter Laviolette, who was behind the bench for Team McDavid. "So we talked before about goalie rotations, making sure everyone got enough ice time and things like that. We had a starting point (with McDavid vs. MacKinnon or Matthews) and it just so happened that the lines kept matching up in those games."

The result was some pretty good hockey by All-Star weekend standards. The semifinal games both went to shootouts, with Pastrnak ending Team MacKinnon's tournament on a change-up shot and DeBrincat putting in a wicked wrister to beat Team Hughes.

While the final ended 7-4, it was pretty close until the end. For example, a Pastrnak goal in the first period was immediately answered by Matthews charging up the ice straight off the ensuing faceoff and it wasn't like some other all-star contests where one team ran away with the affair.

In fact, there's something to be said for the draft format versus the old divisional teams: Apparently the best players in the world know how to spot each other if you let them pick their teammates.

We won't be seeing an All-Star Game next year, with the Four Nations functioning as best-on-best instead, but if the Toronto edition proved anything, it's that the mid-season showdown doesn't have to be a boring slog - keep things simple and the most skilled guys out there can put on a pretty good show.