NHL All-Star 2019: Ya Win One, Ya Lose One

The beauty of All-Star games is it’s fun to watch players from your favorite team join up with players from what would be normally hated rivals and see them work together towards a common goal of trying to not let Connor McDavid embarrass them completely.

The Central division in that regard at least kept McDavid and his Pacific pals at bay in the first game, but didn’t have an answer for Sid’s squad in the final game, but at the very least the Central division finally picked up a win in this All-Star format that took place for the fourth time Saturday night in San Jose.

This is what happens when you load a team up with Oilers, Flames and Canucks.

Seriously though, both the Predators Pekka Rinne in the first half and Wild Devan Dubnyk in the second half put on a bit of a show stonewalling a handful of breakaway and two on one chances that the Pacific division had. To be fair, once they raced out to a 7-1 lead, the Central division did their best to not outright embarrass the lesser Pacific division, almost refusing to take shots to make things more lopsided than they already were.

Blake Wheeler finished with three assists including this pass to Patrick Kane. All of this was very much on-brand for him.

Mark Scheifele meanwhile had a single goal as he went bad down on John Gibson.

As for the coaching of the game. Paul Maurice admitted that he had control of the opening lineup – a combination of Scheifele, Wheeler and Kane – he turned over control of the game to Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon who was voted as the captain but was unable to play due to his foot injury. If the hockey playing thing doesn’t work out, and the Tim Hortons sponsorship fall through, Nate may have a bit of a future in coaching.

Oh, so that’s what that feels like.

To be honest, this is what we get when you put Rinne and Dubnyk in the net for a “must win” game.

The Metro division raced out to a 5-0 lead in the first ten minute half of action as they lit up Dubnyk while Henrk Lundqvist kept Central division shooters at bay. In the second half the Central division made a bit of a run to rally back but the Metro team was just a bit too much as All-Star MVP Sidney Crosby chipped in a couple of goals in the second half to put the game out of reach.

At the very least, Blake got to show why he was in the accuracy shooting competition last night…

The Metro division wins the All-Star game.. err.. tournament? At least for one year the Central division wasn’t one and done and we’re only a couple of sleeps away from getting real hockey back in our lives.