After a two-year hiatus from the NHL All-Star weekend, the league and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) announced the format for the next season’s event, which will take place on February 5-6 on Long Island at UBS Arena.
It is no secret that two straight NHL seasons, briefly interrupted by international play, the Four Nations Tournament in 2025, and the Winter Olympics in 2026, created a ton of buzz around the sport. The 2027 Honda NHL All-Star Game is going to fully embrace that sentiment. The game, or rather tournament, will feature five different teams: Canada, Finland, Sweden, the USA, and the “World” team. The World team will consist of the best available players from outside the aforementioned four countries.
According to the NHL Public Relations Department, each roster will consist of 11 players: nine skaters and two goaltenders. The NHL and NHLPA will name 30 candidates for each participating team (150 total) for the 2027 NHL All-Star Fan Vote, which opens in December. Fans will then select eight players per team from that pool. The remaining three spots on each roster, one forward, one defenseman, and one goaltender, will be chosen jointly by the NHL and NHLPA.
The tournament will be three-on-three hockey. Each team will play four 5-minute round robin games, which will not have any overtime or shootouts. The point system in the round robin is: 2 points for a win, one for a tie, and zero for a loss. Once each team has completed their four games, the top two teams will advance to play a ten minute final with the winning team collecting a $2MM prize.
In addition to the three-on-three tournament, there will be the skills competition which will spotlight ten of the league’s young stars ages 25 or younger to compete across eigh events. All ten skaters will participate in the following: Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Passing Challenge, One Timers, Stick Handling and Accuracy Shooting. The top four players after these events will advance to a shootout. Thereafter, the two finalists will compete in an Obstacle Course Finale to decide the will. The skills competition champion will take home a $1MM prize.
A third straight year of international best-on-best should make for a fantastic weekend on Long Island.
3 on 3 = boring
What a joke. Bettman when are you going to retire
Just have team Russia already. If USA has a team, no reason Russia shouldn’t
World team will surely be dominated by Russia plus Draisaitl, Slavkosky, Josi etc.
If USA has a team, no reason Russia shouldn’t? What is that supposed to mean exactly?
Don’t answer that. They’ll just shut down the comments again.
Hmmm, what could I mean? I’ll let it marinate with u awhile.
@CTS – Yeah, I know what you meant. You’re one of those individuals 🙄
He’s not wrong.
@Feelthe One of which individuals?
Isn’t that an oxymoron? “One” of those “individuals”? lol
@Hockeysense – no, that’s not an oxymoron at all lol.
@Censored – can’t say on here as that crosses into the political realm.
Thanx Thunder lol
@Feel i honestly dont understand whom you’re refering to
@Censored – I was commenting @CTS
How many more country-versus-country tournaments do we actually need? It’s becoming repetitive. The NHL is exploiting every opportunity until it reaches its limit, and that moment will inevitably come. They seem unable to come up with anything original for All-Star Weekend.
Hint: you are not obligated to pay attention to any of them
If its going to be 3 on 3, can we please get a shot clock? Or some type of reverse offside if you go back over the red line? Or something to make it actually interesting to watch?
You know why people love playoff OT? Because its HOCKEY.
You know why people hate 3 on 3 OT. Because it’s glorified keepaway that goes against everything that makes hockey…… well, hockey.
I’d start with disallowing the team controlling the puck not to be allowed to carry it over the red line towards their own goal
Now that’s a good idea
They should try a hybrid style like that during the all-star to see how it looks. If it works, then talk about changing it for the regular season.
Time to change the playoff format. Who cares about the all-star game.
All Star games are dead. Not just in Hockey, In all sports. The only one remotely interesting is basketball and that’s because there is no physical contact just a 3 point shooting exhibition. Nobody is going to get hurt in hockey or football and in baseball nobody cares since they make more than the pay for a game they’d rather have the days off. Let them die and move on.
Feels pretty unfair to Finland, tbh.
And still, few will care about this event. Bettman & Co. still think gimmicks like this appeal to anyone besides the always online crowd.
It’s for the young fan base. Didn’t you like it when you were a kid?
When I was a kid (long time ago with a 21 team league!) they used to have the game on during a weeknight and the big thrill of the event was the MVP winning a new car. Filling out that paper all-star ballot and mailing it in was a hoot though! 😄
Yeah I really enjoyed the whole thing (I too was around with 21 teams), but definitely lost the appeal as I got older. It has become more of a gimmick now, but I think they are catering to the younger demographic.
I didn’t mind it when captains picked their teams though. That made it more interesting.
At least they are trying something new.