All-star stuff.

Dan Rosen gets some behind-the-scenes moments from the skills stuff last night.

My take on the All-star Skills junk.

Love the speed skating.
Love the hardest shot.
Love the target shooting.
Love the full skill relay - the passing into the small nets, wow.
But for all the Goalie Hype in the NHL world, we saw no skill competition to make goalies shine.
(3v3 should expose every goalie, though. And provide some potentially jaw-dropping saves too. Every goalie will make them, though.)

I don't mind these guys getting silly. It is mostly good stuff, for sure. Loved seeing PK Subban do the Jagr. But that freaking Breakaway Challenge is like bad SNL skits. This is not a skill event. It just something out of a circus. It is somewhat entertaining, but as a fan, I feel bad for these guys trying to come up with something cool. I mean, James Neal doing the decoy shot and the second puck trick was classic - but no one caught that when he did it.

It reminds me of the Slam-dunk competition in the NBA, but without any dunk.

It's like the NHL is saying "We don't really have any skills our fans really get or enjoy. Let's just encourage stupid stuff." Fortunately there are guys like PK Subban and Brent Burns out there.

The whole event takes up a ton of time too.