Los Angeles Kings Carter and Doughty Participate in Skills Competition
By Ian Smith
NHL All Star Weekend continued with the skills competition on Saturday night, and the Los Angeles Kings representatives helped put on quite a show in front of the Staples Center crowd.
Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty naturally got the loudest ovations during the player intros, with some passionate jeers thrown in for other Pacific Division selections.
The first competition was the NHL Skills Challenge Relay. It consisted of one-timers, passing, puck control, stick handling, and goalie goals portions.
Carter was one of the players who handled the one-timer section for the Pacific, while Doughty conducted the passing segment of the relay.
The Central Division and the Metropolitan Division each got 1 point for winning their heat, and the Metropolitan got a bonus point for having the best total time in the relay.
After the first competition, the score was Metropolitan 2, Central 1, Pacific 0, and Atlantic Division 0.
The next competition was the NHL Four Line Challenge, which consisted of different skaters taking shots from the near blue line, center ice, far blue line, and far goal line.
At the various distances, certain holes were left open in the net for the shooters to aim for. They got a specific amount of points if they could score in the given holes from their distance.
The Pacific got a big boost when Mike Smith got 20 points for scoring 5-hole from the far goal line. For the round, the Pacific got 23 points, the Metropolitan got 1, the Central got 1, and the Atlantic got 0.
The overall score through the first two competitions was Metropolitan 2, Pacific 1, Central 1, and Atlantic 0.
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The next competition was the NHL Accuracy Shooting. Each shooter had to hit 4 targets in each corner of the net as quickly as possible.
Kyle Okposo got a point for Atlantic by beating John Tavares in the first heat.
In the second heat, Connor McDavid picked up a point for Pacific by besting Patrik Laine.
In the third heat, Sidney Crosby grabbed the point for Metropolitan by defeating Auston Matthews.
Carter appeared in the 4th heat, and edged Patrick Kane to get a point for Pacific. Crosby had the best overall time, and got a bonus point for Metropolitan.
Halfway through the competition, the overall scoreboard read Metropolitan 4, Pacific 3, Central 1, Atlantic 1.
The next competition was NHL Fastest Skater. In the first matchup, Nikita Kucherov beat Cam Atkinson to get a point for Atlantic.
In the second matchup, Laine edged out Bo Horvat to snag a point for Central, despite a scoring error that originally gave Horvat the win.
In the third matchup, Vincent Trocheck defeated Wayne Simmonds to give Atlantic a point. In the fourth matchup, McDavid bested Nathan MacKinnon to give Pacific a point.
McDavid earned a bonus point for Pacific by having the fastest overall time. He was given the opportunity to get another point by breaking Dylan Larkin’s full lap record, but came up short in his solo run at the record.
The overall scoreboard after four rounds of competition read Pacific 5, Metropolitan 4, Atlantic 3, Central 2.
The fifth competition was the NHL Hardest Shot. In the first matchup, Laine beat Brent Burns to give Central a point. In the second matchup, Seth Jones beat Victor Hedman to snag a point for Metropolitan.
In the third matchup, Doughty picked up a point for Pacific by defeating MacKinnon. In the fourth matchup, Shea Weber beat Alex Ovechkin to give a point to Atlantic.
Weber had the hardest overall shot for the third consecutive year, and gave Atlantic a bonus point for his tremendous effort.
The Pacific and Atlantic each finished with the most points in their conference, and met in the final round. The two sides squared off in a shootout to determine the action in the Sunday tournament.
Atlantic won the shootout 4-1, with the only goal for Pacific coming from Ryan Kesler’s son on a nifty score against Carey Price.
As the prize for winning the skills competition, the Atlantic Division chose to play second in the Sunday All Star tournament against the Metropolitan Division.
As a result of that choice, the first game will be the Pacific Division against the Central Division in the Sunday tournament.
Next: Los Angeles Kings Well Represented in 100 Greatest NHL Players List
It was a great night for hockey, as the stars of the league got to have some fun and put on a great show for fans around the world.