The NHL kicked off its All-Star festivities on Friday night with the Skills Competition as well as a three-on-three women’s game to showcase some of their talents as well. Here are the results:
- Women’s Hockey: Canada 2, USA 1
- Fastest Skater: Mathew Barzal (Islanders), 13.175 seconds
- Save Streak: Jordan Binnington (Blues), 10 saves
- Accuracy Shooting: Jaccob Slavin (Hurricanes), 9.505 seconds
- Hardest Shot: Shea Weber (Canadiens), 106.5 MPH
- Shooting Stars: Patrick Kane (Blackhawks), 22 points
The All-Star Game festivities run tonight with NHL games resuming on Monday.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- Mathew Barzal’s pending restricted free agency is going to be one of the more interesting ones to follow this summer. He has led the Islanders in points in each of his first two NHL seasons and currently leads them in scoring this season. Despite that, Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post suggests that the likeliest scenario is that he winds up with a short-term bridge contract. GM Lou Lamoriello doesn’t seem like the type of manager to be willing to approach the contract that Toronto winger Mitch Marner received before the start of this season (a $10.893MM AAV) so the safer move would be to go with the short-term deal for now and go for the long-term deal down the road.
- Kings defenseman Joakim Ryan is expected to be available for their first game after the All-Star break, notes Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider. The 26-year-old has been out since late-December with a lower-body injury. A pending unrestricted free agent with a cap hit of just $725K, Ryan could draw a little bit of trade interest over the next month from teams that are looking to add defensive depth but have limited cap space. While he has just three points in 27 games this season, he’s averaging a career-high 18:48 in ice time per night.