Mat Barzal’s All-Star Weekend

Mat Barzal was honored with his third All-Star selection as the lone representative from the New York Islanders. He had a busy weekend participating in the 2024 All-Star festivities taking place in the city of Toronto. On Friday night, he participated in the revamped NHL Skills Competition as an injury replacement for Jack Hughes. Then on Saturday, he took the ice in the All-Star game as a member of Team Matthews. Here’s how the All-Star weekend went for Mat Barzal. 

Skills Competition: Part One

Barzal was one of the 12 players playing in the new format of the Skills Competition on Friday night. This format saw these 12 players compete in a variety of games to earn points. The player with the highest number of points by the night’s end would take home the $1 million prize. The first competition that Barzal took part in was the always-popular fastest skater contest. As expected, it was predominantly a race between him and Connor McDavid. Barzal finished his lap at 13.519 seconds but was just barely beaten by McDavid, who finished with a time of 13.408 seconds. He finished second overall among the field of five skaters. Next up for Barzal was the new one-timers competition, in which he took passes from Connor Bedard. He finished with just 16 points, a score that placed him second to last in the game. 

Skills Competition: Part Two

In the next passing challenge, Barzal finished with a score of 21 points, which earned him third place in a field of 11 players. He had another top-three performance in the stick handling competition, finishing with a second-place time of 26.929 seconds. Notably, in the one-on-one competition, Barzal chose to face off against his New York rival, Igor Shesterkin. He finished in fourth place, getting six points against Shesterkin and nearly beating him with an impressive between-the-legs shot. Barzal’s final competition was on the obstacle course, which wasn’t his finest competition of the night as he finished in last place. Up until the last competition Barzal was in the running for the grand prize, but ultimately couldn’t pull it off. He finished 5th overall in the competition. 

All-Star Game

In the All-Star game, Barzal was selected to play for the team captained by hometown heroes Auston Matthews and Justin Bieber. With Matthews and several other Maple Leafs players featured on this team, the home crowd was heavily behind them. They faced off against the team captained by Jack and Quinn Hughes and Michael Bublé in the semi-final round. Barzal skated on a line with Alex Debrincat and Filip Forsberg, who absolutely dominated in this game. They were responsible for four of the team’s five regulation goals. Barzal had three assists in the game, with one going to Debrincat and the other two going to Forsberg. He and Team Matthews won the game by a 6-5 final score on the strength of Debrincat’s shootout winner. 

In the championship round, Team Matthews faced off against Team McDavid and celebrity captain Will Arnett. Barzal was again active, assisting on back-to-back goals from Forsberg and Matthews in the second half of the game. Up by two, Barzal and Debrincat had a two-on-none chance in which they passed the puck back and forth several times until Barzal ripped one past Connor Hellebuyck. That goal cemented a 7-4 victory and the $1 million prize for the members of Team Matthews. Barzal finished the day with a goal and five total assists. His six overall points were tied with Debrincat’s for the game-high.

Featured image courtesy of NHL.com

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