Friday, Feb. 4, 2022 | 2 a.m.
COVID has scuttled plenty of NFL games this season and axed plans for NHL players to participate in the Olympics, but the league’s All-Star Weekend remains a go. That’s a relief for Las Vegas, which will host the festivities for the first time.
Three Golden Knights are slated to take part in the festivities (see sidebar), which include more than Saturday’s All-Star Game. Here’s a roundup of everything you need to know about the action on the ice.
FAN FAIR
NHL devotees will have an opportunity to display their skills from February 3-6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall. Attendees can measure their shot power, partake in interactive, family-friendly exhibits and get autographs from NHL alumni. The Fan Fair will also include the seventh-annual Mascot Showdown, putting local favorite Chance against 27 other team mascots in a series of fun contests. Tickets are available at nhl.com/fans/all-star/2022-fan-fair.
ALL-STAR SKILLS
This year’s skills competition will include two new events: the Fountain Face-Off, which will take place in the center of the Fountains of Bellagio and will find skaters shooting pucks at five targets; and 21 in ’22, which will take place on Las Vegas Boulevard and is being billed as “a new twist on street hockey” involving a deck of oversized playing cards.
Carry-over events include Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Accuracy Shooting, Breakaway Challenge and Save Streak. Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras, retired female hockey players Manon Rhéaume and Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and actor Wyatt Russell will be among the guests participating in skills competition events.
ALL-STAR GAME
No, it won’t be like a regular NHL game. The league will be divided into four teams—one for each division—with the 60-minute “game” actually split into three 20-minute mini-games in a tournament format. The Pacific squad will play the Central in one game, then the Metropolitan will play the Atlantic, with the winners meeting in the final round. The game will be played entirely at 3-on-3, with each team made up of nine skaters and two goalies. It figures to be high-scoring—the 2020 All-Star Game featured had 38 combined goals.
VEGAS’ ALL-STAR WEEKEND PARTICIPANTS
Left to right: Golden Knights Mark Stone, Alex Pietrangelo and Pete DeBoer
Mark Stone - forward
The Golden Knights’ captain will be making his first career All-Star appearance after narrowly missing the cut a few times, with some fans decrying those absences as a snub. Although Stone has missed nearly half the current season with injuries, he’s producing at better than a point-per-game clip when in the lineup.
Jonathan Marchessault - forward
The fan favorite "original Misfit" was the final player added to the roster less than 48 hours before All-Star festivities began. The ninth-year NHL veteran will play in his first All-Star Game after a hot start to the season including a team-leading 20 goals that has him on pace for a career year.
Alex Pietrangelo - defenseman
The veteran blueliner will be playing in his third All-Star Game and first since coming to the Golden Knights. Pietrangelo has been a constant in Vegas’ lineup and helped it the team afloat during a first half of the season that saw virtually all the rest of its stars miss extended time with injuries.
Pete DeBoer - coach
DeBoer will coach the Pacific Division All-Stars for the second time in his career (he also held the post in the 2016-2017 All-Star Game when he was with the Sharks). He earned the nod this year by virtue of the Golden Knights holding the best points percentage in the division at the January 10 cutoff date. The team remained in first place at press time.
NON-VGK PLAYERS TO WATCH
Colorado dynamo Nathan MacKinnon will miss the festivities due to an injury, but the weekend won’t lack for star power.
The Metropolitan Division roster includes Washington’s Alex Ovechkin, serving as captain and playing in his eighth All-Star Game, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho and New Jersey’s Jack Hughes. Toronto’s Auston Matthews will captain the Atlantic Division squad, which will also feature Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau and three reps from two-time defending champion Tampa Bay: forward Steven Stamkos, defenseman Victor Hedman and goalie Andrei Vasilevsky.
On the West side, Dallas’ Joe Pavelski will step in for MacKinnon as captain for a Central Division group that also includes Nashville’s Roman Josi, Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov and Colorado’s Cale Makar. And in the Golden Knights’ Pacific Division, Edmonton’s Connor McDavid will serve as captain alongside Oilers teammate Leon Draisaitl, Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau and San Jose’s Timo Meier, among others.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
