NHL All-Star Skills 2019: Highlights From Scheifele & Wheeler

Friday night in San Jose the NHL had their annual skills competition and of course Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele were in the middle of things representing the Winnipeg Jets and the Central Division.

Mark saw action first as he was part of the Puck Control event that saw skaters navigate their way through pucks, cones and a series of vertical apparatuses that tested a player’s ability to lift a puck up and through elevated rings.

Scheifele’s bobble at the end of a near perfect run had him ended up finishing with a time of 32.161 which placed him fourth when all was said and done.

The next bit of action the Jets saw was in the goaltender’s “Save Streak” competition where each of goalies were tasked with stopping multiple breakaway / penalty shot chances in a row. Both Mark and Blake got to get at least a small measure of revenge from last spring on an old rival…

Blake Wheeler’s trickle in goal ended Marc-Andre Fleury’s night with a streak of just six saves.

During the competition, Mark Scheifele got in some work as a guest commentator…

After a brief intermission that still saw some impressive skills being put on display by Blake’s son Louie…

… It was time for dad to go to work in the shooting accuracy competition. Blake’s second run at it went a bit better than his first attempt from last year.

Wheeler’s time of 18.585 ended up placing him fifth. While many felt the one of the league’s leader in assists should have given the passing competition a try, one has to wonder if Blake saw how tough that was last year and used his captain’s pull with the coach to avoid that and give the shooting skill another try.

With the carnival skills portion of the weekend done, Saturday night both Blake and Mark along with coach Paul Maurice will look to help guide the Central Division to their first win since the three on three format was introduced two seasons ago.