NHL All Star Games: How To Fix The ASG Weekend
The NHL All Star Game: Kind of a bust?
Where’s your back-check? *clap clap clap*
Where’s your back-check? *clap clap clap*
The NHL held its (somewhat?) annual All-Star Game on Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, to the tune of a record setting 17-12 Team Toews victory. Team Foligno took home the victory in the skills competition the night before.
MVP honors (and, more importantly, a new car) went to Ryan Johansen of the hometown Columbus Blue Jackets, while Arizona Coyotes defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson notched a single assist in his first All-Star experience for the losing Team Foglino.
The weekend itself had a lot of great moments, don’t get me wrong.
It all started with the NHL All Star draft on Friday, which featured the trade of Phil Kessel for Tyler Seguin (again). Then, we had the skills competition on Saturday (my favorite part of this weekend), which still has me laughing thanks to Jakub Voracek and Johnny Gaudreau.
That was awesome — and so was OEL, who wowed the crowds in both the puckhandling competition and the shootout, where he went two for two.
The game, however, was a different story; despite the high score, it was nearly impossible to watch.
Players were standing around half the time in between every breakaway goal, and (as expected) back-checking was looked down upon. The best thing about the game itself may have been well after its finish, when Alex Ovechkin melted your heart.
So, is there a way to make the game more watchable or to keep it fresh? I have some ideas:
Last week, prior to the announcement of the World Cup of Hockey, Sportnet’s Elliot Friedman proposed a terrific idea for a new format that I really like:
"“In tribute to Joe Piscopo in Johnny Dangerously, I believe you should try everything… once. But, if the NHL really wants to do something different while featuring its youthful sensations, here’s some free advice:Do it in the All-Star Game.Make it the Under-27s versus the rest of the NHL (chosen because that is the age for Unrestricted Free Agency). You can still do fan voting. You can’t do a draft, but if you want to poke fun at someone, give a car to the guy with the worst plus/minus.”"
I absolutely love this idea, and it’s the perfect way to showcase the league’s young talent.
Would it make the game anymore of a defensive showcase? NO — but come on; how cool was it to see both Filip Forsberg and Johnny Geaudreau on the same line Sunday?
If that is the format, then how do we make the game more interesting short of an MLB-like “this time it counts” idea?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is to put something on the line — and for me, why not make it a sizable charitable donation? Picture this: for the winning team, each of its players get to choose their favorite charity — and the NHL will donate some money to each of those charities. Come the third period, one would imagine those players start actually playing a little harder, knowing they might let their favorite charity down if they lose.
Or… maybe you just get rid of the MVP award, and instead make a new one called “The Best Back-Check Award”, and give the MVP car to the player that had the best back-check of the entire game.
The bottom line is: most All Star games are pretty boring, and in any format the game itself might be beyond saving — so thank goodness we still get moments like this during the skills challenge.
and this….
More from Howlin' Hockey
- How the Arizona Coyotes could line-up with Logan Cooley signed
- Report: Logan Cooley could be closer to signing Arizona Coyotes ELC
- Arizona Coyotes sign Matias Maccelli to three-year deal
- Ivan Prosvetov signs one-year deal with Arizona Coyotes
- Arizona Coyotes cut Galchenyuk after reported police incident