NHL announces participants for All-Star skills competition

We’re days away from the NHL All-Star Game and on Thursday, the league announced who is participating in what during the skills competition.

Taking place Friday night at 7:30 p.m. ET, the skills competition will surely be something to watch. This year, the league will have competitions for fastest skater, save streak, hardest shot, a breakaway challenge and an accuracy shooting event. It’s the first time since 2016 the breakaway competition was held — the same year since John Scott was hilariously named All-Star Game MVP.

This year’s All-Star Game will also feature a few unique events this year.

First will be the fountain face-off set to take place on the Bellagio Fountains.

“Players will travel by boat to the ‘rink’ and are required to successfully shoot pucks into five targets in the least amount of time,” the league said. “Qualifying players move to the head-to-head final. Fountain spray and the breeze off The Strip will add to the challenge of this unprecedented… event.”

Jonathan Hubredeau, Claude Giroux, Jordan Eberle, Roman Josi, Nick Suzuki, Zach Werenski, Mark Stone and Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson will all participate.

Another new one will be the league shutting down part of Las Vegas Boulevard for the NHL 21 in ’22 event that will see players play Blackjack with a deck of oversized cards. Participants include Nazem Kadri, Auston Matthews, Joe Pavelski, Steven Stamkos and Brady Tkachuk will take part in the event.

Here’s who will be participating in the remaining events:

Fastest skater 

• Chris Kreider, NYR
• Adrian Kempe, LAK
• Kyle Connor, WPG
• Evgeny Kuznetsov, WSH
• Jordan Kyrou, STL
• Dylan Larkin, DET
• Cale Makar, COL
• Connor McDavid, EDM

Save streak

• Jack Campbell, TOR
• Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL
• Frederik Andersen, CAR
• Tristan Jarry, PIT
• Cam Talbot, MIN
• Juuse Saros, NSH
• Thatcher Demko, VAN
• John Gibson, ANA

Hardest shot

• Adam Pelech, NYI
• Timo Meier, SJS
• Victor Hedman, TBL
• Tom Wilson, WSH

Breakaway challenge 

• Goalies: Manon Rhéaume and Wyatt Russell
• Kirill Kaprizov, MIN
• Trevor Zegras, ANA
• Jack Hughes, NJD
• Alex DeBrincat, CHI
• Alex Pietrangelo, VGK

Accuracy shooting

• Four passers, including Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson
• Leon Draisaitl, EDM
• Clayton Keller, ARI
• Rasmus Dahlin, BUF
• Sebastian Aho, CAR
• Jake Guentzel, PIT
• Troy Terry, ANA
• Johnny Gaudreau, CGY
• Patrice Bergeron, BOS
• Jonathan Marchessault, VGK