(WGR 550) – Not much was expected from Rasmus Dahlin when he took Tage Thompson’s place in the “Hardest Shot” competition at the NHL All-Star Skills Challenge. Dahlin replaced the injured Thompson on Friday, and surprised everybody by ripping a bomb at 102.3 miles-per-hour.
The only shot that was faster came from Elias Pettersson of the Vancouver Canucks, who blasted a puck at 103.2 miles-per-hour.
Dahlin also helped Connor McDavid, giving the Edmonton Oilers captain four gorgeous passes in the “Accuracy Shooting”. McDavid went 4-for-4 with the targets, but he lost to Calgary Flames center Nazim Kadri, who went 4-for-5 but finished faster.
The reason McDavid lost is he took a split second to make sure he lined up the final target in the upper-right corner of the net, not realizing that Kadri was right there to take the victory from him.
McDavid ended up going a perfect 8-for-8 in the two rounds he participated.
Brock Nelson of the New York Islanders beat Kadri in the final.
Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrew Scechnikov won the “Fastest Skater” competition over Kevin Fiala of the Los Angeles Kings.
The “Tendy Tandem” competition went to the Central Division goalie tandem of Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets and Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators.
“Splash Shot” on the beach was won by teammates Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche.
“Pitch ‘N Putt” was players teeing off on a Par-4 golf hole of 140 yards with a puck and their hockey sticks. Once they got to the green, they still used their sticks, but switched to golf balls. Nick Suzuki from the Montreal Canadiens shot birdie to win.
They also had a “Breakaway Challenge”, which was just players trying to be creative. Sidney Crosby teamed up with Alex Ovechkin to skate in on a breakaway with Ovechkin’s 4-year-old son, Sergei, to set the youngster up for the goal and the unanimous win from the celebrity judges.
Dahlin will play on Saturday for the Atlantic Division in a 3-on-3 All-Star Game tournament.
