NHL team mascots pose for a group photo before a dodgeball game, the first event in a NHL Mascot Showdown, during the 2022 Honda All-Star Weekend Truly Hard Seltzer NHL Fan Fair at the Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022.
Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The first goal came in 13 seconds.
The Metropolitan Division team came out hot in the main event of the 2022 NHL All-Star weekend Saturday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena, and never really cooled down. They went on to score to their next two goals in a 12-second span to help eliminate the Pacific Division heavy on hometown Golden Knights with three players (Mark Stone, Alex Pietrangelo and Jonathan Marchessault) and coach Pete DeBoer.
“We got off to a slow start,” DeBoer said afterwards with a laugh, “and I think that was due to late-night Vegas activities.”
The 6-4 victory by the Metropolitan All-Stars, which also went on to beat the Central 5-3 to win the three-mini-game tournament, didn’t do much to dampen the enthusiasm even among the Golden Knights’ contingent and their partisan crowd.
How could it?
Like the All-Star game proper, the past three days of NHL festivities were fun-filled, fast-paced and action-packed in an environment up and down the Strip that traffics exclusively in fun-filled, fast-paced and action-packed.
All-Star games are the perfect marriage with Las Vegas’ new, sports-centric identity. Becoming the first city to simultaneously host both the NFL and NHL editions has been a smashing success.
Not that it’s any surprise, as that’s exactly what executives and planners promised. But it’s one thing to say it, and another thing to actually pull it off and do it.
The NHL has done it, and the NFL is likely to follow suit when their own celebrations conclude at Noon today at Allegiant Stadium with the 2022 Pro Bowl.
“We’ve hosted a number of events here over the years even before the Golden Knights existed,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a Friday news conference. “The hospitality — this is a city that’s known for it — has always been great and where else would they let us shut down the main thoroughfare so we could conduct the skills event?”
The NHL All-Star weekend’s excessive, and appropriate, amount of glitz and creativity started early, as the NHL filmed its one-time-only “Fountain Face-Off” challenge at the Bellagio on Thursday night.
The shooting competition on platforms in the middle of the Bellagio fountains, which aired on Friday night as part of the skills competition, brought an only-in-Vegas-type feel that carried through all the proceedings.
“I think that was the coolest part, when the big fountains were going off and how loud they are,” Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski, the event’s winner, told NHL.com afterwards. “You could feel the mist from them a little bit. It was an awesome event they put on. It was better than I expected to be.”
Stone couldn’t skew the odds in his favor in the competition, finishing sixth, but Pietrangelo got the ultimate “house always win” moment on Friday. He won gold in the breakaway challenge despite Anaheim Ducks center Trevor Zegras and Chicago Blackhawks winger Alex DeBrincat putting on far more elaborate and celebrated displays.
But Pietrangelo’s friend and actor Jon Hamm, part of a celebrity judging panel also including Raiders tight end Darren Waller, gave him nine bonus points despite missing the net after skating down a runaway created by the Knight Line. Including the Golden Knights’ drum line was a nice touch of production, but the talk of the skills competition was the aforementioned two competitors.
Zegras showcased fancy stick work while blindfolded in a homage to 2004 comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story while DeBrincat came out in full costume as Zach Galifianakis’s character from 2009 comedy The Hangover.
He also employed the Raiders’ Derek Carr and Hunter Renfow as Bradley Cooper’s and Ed Helms’s parts, respectively. Carr tossed DeBrincat a football he shot into the net.
“This is unbelievable,” Carr said while on the ice. “I’m thankful to be a part of it.”
That seemed to be the attitude of everyone, even those who had been through All-Star weekends in the past. There was a $1 million prize to the winning team of Saturday’s All-Star Game, so it’s not like stakes were non-existent, but the Golden Knights still prioritized enjoying the moment.
DeBoer joked afterwards that he would use the quick goals allowed while Marchessault was on the ice as a reason to continue not playing the veteran in regular-season, 3-on-3 overtimes despite the forward's best lobbying efforts. Marchessault grinned when he heard that threat and shot back.
“Not the start we wanted but it was probably on the coach,” he said. “It was his decision to put us three out there and it was not a good start. I can take a little bit of the blame, but he’s got to take some too.”
DeBoer wasn’t interested in the blame game. He admitted to being hungover after indulging in the All-Star parties a little too much on Friday night.
There’s no shame in that, not with how easy it was to get swept into the atmosphere of NHL All-Star Weekend locally.
“Being in Vegas gives you a to take chance to do things you wouldn’t normally do with events and production,” DeBoer said. “I thought it was awesome. I think this is the way the game is going, the way we want to market it, the way we want to sell it and I think this is the perfect place to be able to try some things that traditional markets don’t try.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or
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