The NHL's All-Star Weekend is upon us once again, with
the festivities taking place in lovely San Jose. Say what you will about the
event and its virtues -- maybe you think it's a giant waste of time, or maybe
you think it's a wonderful display of player aptitude and personality -- but
the annual cavalcade of stars always manages to squeeze out a memorable moment
or two.
For this week's power rankings, we're looking at some of
the most memorable moments for the 31 teams at the All-Star Game or Skills
Competition.
1. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
PREVIOUS RANKING: 1
Steven
Stamkos wins the 2012 Elimination Shootout. The what now? This
was the event in which individual scorers tried to score on a breakaway against
an opposing goalie. Shooters who scored stayed alive until there was one
shooter left. Stamkos won the 2012 edition in Ottawa. There hasn't been another
version of the event. Hence, Stamkos will forever be known as the Grand
Elimination Challenge Undisputed Universal Champion.
2. CALGARY FLAMES
PREVIOUS RANKING: 2
Johnny
Gaudreau wanted to light his stick on fire. With due respect to
all of the players in Flames history who actually accomplished things at the
NHL All-Star Game, we have to take this moment to acknowledge something that
didn't happen: Flames rookie Johnny Gaudreau in 2015, getting rebuffed by NHL
lawyers after seeking permission to light his stick on fire during the skills
competition. "Since we played for the Flames, I want to light it on
fire," Gaudreau said at the game. "I think it was a player safety
concern. I really don't know exactly why."
3. SAN JOSE SHARKS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 4
Owen Nolan calls his
shot in 1997. The Sharks winger, in San Jose no less, completes a
hat trick on a breakaway after pointing at the goalie from the top of the
circles to "call" where he was putting the puck. That goalie? Dominik Hasek!
Wow.
4. WINNIPEG JETS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 5
The moment for Jets fans: Patrik Laine finishing
a strong second to Shea Weber in
the hardest-shot competition and three-tenths of a second behind Connor
McDavid in fastest skater at the 2017 NHL All-Star Game. The
moment for the franchise: Dany Heatley's
four-goal, five-point game for the Atlanta Thrashers at the 2003 NHL All-Star
Game.
5. NEW YORK ISLANDERS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 12
Mike Bossy wins 1982 MVP.
Sometimes, these All-Star Games can be a little dramatic. Witness the 1982 game
between the Wales Conference and the Campbell Conference, which was 2-2 in the
second period after a Wayne Gretzky goal. Enter Bossy, who scored at 17:10 to
give the Wales team the lead and iced the game in the third period with another
goal to win MVP. Something nutty: The game was held in Landover, Maryland, and
Gretzky and the rest of the All-Stars had lunch with President Ronald Reagan at the White House the
day before the game.
6. NASHVILLE PREDATORS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 3
Let's call it a tie: Shea Weber's booming hardest-shot
competition entry at 108.5 mph, just 0.03 off Zdeno Chara's
record, and the way the Nashville fans made the 2016 John Scott phenomenon
such an incredible, heartfelt moment in NHL history.
7. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 6
Vincent
Damphousse wins the 1991 MVP. The scoring center spent his
first five seasons with the Leafs, including the 1990-91 season, when he was a
minus-31. (Ouch.) But he was an All-Star that season in the game held in
Chicago, and he played like one: Damphousse scored four goals to tie a record
shared by Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
The game was notable for being held during the Gulf War. Players wanted it canceled. The Chicago fans were deafening
during the U.S. anthem.
8. VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 7
Marc-Andre
Fleury wins the save streak. Sure, the Knights have had just
one season of existence, but they still have an All-Star Game highlight: Fleury
stopping 14 straight shots to win the inaugural edition of the NHL "Save
Streak" challenge at the All-Star Game in Tampa.
9. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 9
When Sidney Crosby started
actually showing up to play. Kidding! Of course it's Mario Lemieux's
incredible, six-point effort in the 1988 event in St. Louis, culminating in the
overtime game winner for the Wales Conference and, at the time, a single-game
points record in the event.
10. BOSTON BRUINS
PREVIOUS
RANKING: 11
Zdeno Chara cranks
a shot at 108.8 miles per hour in 2012. The towering Bruins defenseman
is a five-time winner of the hardest shot competition. This was his last win in
his old haunt of Ottawa, and it remains the NHL record in the competition. Shea
Weber just missed the mark the following year, hitting 108.5.
11. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 8
Alex Ovechkin takes a
picture of sad, last-picked Phil Kessel at
the 2011 NHL Fantasy Draft. Now, this could have been a spot to honor
Ovechkin's prop comedy skills, competition goals or even old-school Capitals
such as Mike Gartner and Peter Bondra (fastest
skater) or Al Iafrate (hardest
shot) winning their skills competitions. But Ovechkin's "mockery" of
the last pick started the Phil Kessel Redemption Society and exposed the cruel
underbelly of the fantasy draft format that we all loved but the players
loathed.
12. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 10
Rick Nash scores
12 seconds into the 2008 NHL All-Star Game. It remains the fastest goal from
both the start of a game and the start of a period in NHL All-Star Game
history. Runner up: the 29 times we heard the cannon fire in Columbus for the
2015 All-Star Game.
13. MONTREAL CANADIENS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 13
Alexei Kovalev wins the MVP at Bell Centre. The
Canadiens' offensive dynamo had a heck of an entertaining week, playing the
puck off his head in the breakaway challenge, scoring two goals and
an assist in the All-Star Game and scoring one more in the shootout to lead his
team to victory. He was voted in by the fans and vowed to wow them as team
captain. For winning MVP, he won a car.
14. DALLAS STARS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 14
Jamie Benn gets
accurate. The Stars winger won the 2012
shot accuracy competition in 10.204 seconds, which remains the
second-fastest time since the format of the event was changed in 2011.
15. MINNESOTA WILD
PREVIOUS RANKING: 17
Marian
Gaborik wins fastest skater in 2003. Once called a
"Maserati on the Autobahn" by Sports Illustrated, the Wild winger won
the speed skating event at the All-Star Game in Sunrise, Florida. He later won
All-Star Game MVP in 2012 as a member of the Rangers. Honorable mention:
defenseman Filip Kubagetting
the only All-Star Game selection of his career (333 points in 836 games)
because the Wild hosted the 2004 event.
16. COLORADO AVALANCHE
PREVIOUS RANKING: 16
Joe Sakic wins
2004 All-Star MVP. The Hall of Fame center won most valuable player in a losing
effort, scoring three of the Western Conference's four goals for an All-Star
Game hat trick. (For the record, please note that these All-Star jerseys were incredible.)
17. BUFFALO SABRES
PREVIOUS RANKING: 15
Zemgus
Girgensons makes the 2015 All-Star Game. Before there was John
Scott, there was Zemgus Girgensons, the Buffalo forward who to this date has
yet to score more than 30 points in a season. But the NHL's online voting
allowed fans in his native home of Latvia to flood the NHL's poll and power the
21-year-old forward into the game as a starter.
18. CAROLINA HURRICANES
PREVIOUS RANKING: 19
The debut of The Guardian Project. Yes, the ill-conceived
(RIP, Stan Lee) NHL comic book crossover made its infamous debut at the Raleigh
All-Star Game in 2011. And the world was never the same. I mean, until the
Guardian Project disappeared from the NHL's marketing plans about a year later.
Then it was pretty much the same.
19. VANCOUVER CANUCKS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 18
Daniel Sedin's
shot accuracy in 2011. The Canucks star sniped four
targets on four shots in 7.3 seconds to set a still-standing
All-Star record. By comparison, current Canuck Brock Boeser won
last season's shot accuracy challenge in 11.136 seconds.
20. ST. LOUIS BLUES
PREVIOUS RANKING: 21
Mike Liut proves there can be goaltending in an All-Star
Game. The Blues netminder stopped 25 shots in 31 minutes, which included 18
shots in the first period by a Wales Conference team that featured the
host Los Angeles
Kings' entire Triple Crown line. He won the MVP award, one of only five
goalies to ever win it. It earned him a new Toyota Celica Supra!
21. EDMONTON OILERS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 20
Wayne Gretzky scores four
goals in a period in 1983. The game, held at the Nassau
Coliseum, saw the Campbell Conference lead the Wales by one goal headed into
the third period. The Campbell team won 9-3, thanks to Gretzky's
All-Star-Game-record four goals in the third, three of which were assisted
by Mark Messier.
The flurry helped Gretzky win his first of three All-Star MVPs.
22. ANAHEIM DUCKS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 22
Teemu Selanne wins
1998 All-Star MVP. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim star was playing for Team World
in that game's format. He won the Puck Control Relay in the Skills Competition
and then tallied a hat trick in the All-Star Game to become the first
European-born MVP and the first MVP from a losing team since Grant Fuhr in
1986.
23. ARIZONA COYOTES
PREVIOUS RANKING: 24
The nice answer is Keith Tkachuk and Jeremy
Roenick tying shot-accuracy legend Ray Bourque in
the 1999 skills competition in Tampa. The real answer, of course, is that the
Coyotes were to host the 2006 All-Star Game, but it was scuttled due to the
Olympic break, and then the Coyotes were passed over in subsequent attempts to
reacquire the game. Sigh.
24. NEW YORK RANGERS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 23
The Gretzky Farewell tour. New York Rangers legend Wayne
Gretzky was the star of the 1999 (naturally) All-Star Game, helping Team Canada
... uh, "North America" defeat the World stars 8-6. Gretzky, in his
final All-Star Game, had a goal and two assists (including one on Rob Blake's
game winner) to capture MVP honors.
25. FLORIDA PANTHERS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 26
Pavel Bure wins
MVP. The 2000 NHL All-Star Game in Toronto was a pretty memorable one for the
Panthers, what with Viktor Kozlov tying
Ray Bourque in shot accuracy and Bure scoring a hat trick to lead the World
All-Stars to their first win over the North Americans. The Bure brothers
combined for six points, becoming the first brothers to score points in the
same game since Maurice and Henri Richard in 1956.
26. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 28
Patrick Kane wins
the Breakaway Challenge as Superman. Hossa
strapped on the cape. Kane put on the Clark Kent glasses. (Not canon, but
whatever). On his breakaway attempt, he dove to the ice on his stomach and
passed the puck with his glove to his stick for an inventive goal that was good
enough to win the title.
27. PHILADELPHIA FLYERS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 29
Wayne
Simmonds scores the game winner, takes MVP.
In 2017, Simmonds returned to his first NHL home, Los Angeles, to compete in
his first All-Star Game. He scored the definitive goal in the 3-on-3 tournament
final for the Metro Division -- with 4 minutes, 48 seconds left -- to become
the first Flyer to win MVP since Reggie Leach in 1980. He also scored two goals
in the semifinal. He won a Honda Ridgeline. "No clue what I'm going to do
with [the truck]. Maybe somebody -- my mom, dad, brothers or somebody -- needs
a car or something like that. I don't need it. It's a nice luxury to have, but
who knows what I'll do with it," he told Philly.com.
28. NEW JERSEY DEVILS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 25
Brian Boyle makes the
All-Star Game. Boyle's heartwarming comeback in 2017-18 from chronic
myeloid leukemia that led him all the way to the All-Star Game in Tampa
(as Taylor Hall's
injury replacement) became perhaps the story of the event. "I'm very
thankful. I always have been. I've never taken it for granted to play in this
league. To be here and to see all these stars, the guys, how humble they are
and then how supportive they've been for me throughout the year and even today,
it's been wild. It really is," he said.
29. LOS ANGELES KINGS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 30
Wayne Gretzky wins MVP ... in Edmonton. Gretzky, traded
to the Kings in 1988, returned to Edmonton for the All-Star Game in only his second
appearance there with the opposition. He skated on a line with Jari Kurri.
He was warmly greeted by the fans. He won the MVP award with a goal and two
assists in the Campbell Conference's 9-5 win, getting a car as a reward, which
he gifted to former Oilers teammate (and bodyguard) Dave Semenko, who had just
retired.
30. DETROIT RED WINGS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 27
Gordie Howe gets into a fight at the All-Star Game. Way
back in 1948, in the second NHL All-Star event, Howe was a member of the team
of stars who took on the defending Stanley Cup champion Maple Leafs, which was
the initial format for the game. At Chicago Stadium in 1948, Gordie Howe and
Gus Mortson of the Leafs got into an actual fight in the All-Star Game that was so
nasty that the two were held under police guard until their penalties were
over. Old-time hockey!
31. OTTAWA SENATORS
PREVIOUS RANKING: 31
Team Alfredsson at the 2012 All-Star Game. The most
popular player in franchise history was given his own fantasy team captaincy in
an event that served as a 20th-anniversary celebration of the return of the
franchise. His fantasy team captain opponent? Former Senator Zdeno Chara.
Completing the Sens celebration: Fans voted three other Ottawa players into the
starting lineup in Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza and Milan
Michalek.
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