All-Star Weekend kicks off on Friday evening with the skills competition, followed by the “game” — actually a mini-tournament of three games — on Saturday.
The two-day event can be a lot of fun for hockey fans. The tournament is low-intensity but it still allows the players to have a little fun and show some personality. The best part, however, is the skills competition.
It’s a fun event that appeals to the kid in all of us, attempting to answer important questions — Who in the NHL can shoot the puck the hardest? Who’s the fastest skater? Which player has the sweetest moves? Who is the top sniper in the league?
Every player gets a chance to showcase their best attributes, with speedy forwards blazing around the rink and hard-shooting defencemen blasting their hardest slap shots. Well, every player except the goaltenders.
The Vancouver Canucks have one representative at the All-Star Game — goaltender Thatcher Demko. He’s a worthy All-Star, who has kept the Canucks competitive despite some serious troubles scoring. He has a .937 save percentage at 5-on-5, which is behind only the unreal Igor Shesterkin among goaltenders with at least 20 starts this season.
Unfortunately, it’s tough for goaltenders to be at their best at All-Star Weekend, whether in the skills competition or in the game itself. No part of the weekend plays to the strengths of a goaltender.
Demko will take part in the only event at the skills competition that is designed for goaltenders: the Save Streak.
During the Save Streak event, goaltenders face a steady stream of shootout attempts from another division’s players and will attempt to make as many consecutive saves as possible. It’s not really representative of what makes a goaltender great but it’s about as good as the skills competition can muster.
Of course, fans watch the All-Star Weekend to see great goals — the whole point of the Save Streak event is the exact opposite of that. The event also doesn’t really lend itself to great saves — the best saves in hockey typically come from wild scrambles in the middle of play or outstanding stretches across the net on a passing play. Saves in the shootout don’t lend themselves to those kinds of acrobatics.
Still, at least Demko will have a fantastic soundtrack as he attempts to make the most consecutive saves. Players were allowed to pick their own songs for the skills competition and Demko went with “Blue World” by Mac Miller, which has an incredible beat.
The NHL has tried to include goaltenders in more events before, such as in the fastest skater competition but it’s just not super compelling and the potential for a goaltender to wipe out and get injured is high. The Canucks had Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider compete in the hardest shot competition at their Superskills event one year and the results were at least kind of funny.
Injury is a real risk. Rick DiPietro injured his hip during the 2008 All-Star skills competition, pulling out of the Breakaway event while wearing a live mic.
“I’m out,” said DiPietro, not knowing his words were going out on the broadcast. “I just f***ed my hip up again.”
There’s a reason why the NHL has used non-NHL goaltenders for the Breakaway event in more recent years. This year, Manon Rheaume, famously the first woman to appear in an NHL preseason game, will suit up in net at one end of the ice. At the other end of the ice will be former Coquitlam Express goaltender and current actor Wyatt Russell, who appeared as John Walker in the Marvel TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Then there’s the game itself, which again is not ideal for a goaltender. Defence is nearly non-existent in the All-Star Game, with goaltenders frequently facing breakaways, 2-on-1s, and even 2-on-0s, with tic-tac-toe passing plays testing their puck-tracking ability.
The unstructured nature of the game and the focus on scoring goals makes it tough for a goaltender to shine. It’s not impossible for a goaltender to be the biggest star, however: Mike Richter, Grant Fuhr, Billy Smith, and Bruce Gamble were all All-Star Game MVPs.
Demko is the seventh Canucks goaltender to be named to the All-Star Game. Gary Smith, John Garrett, Kirk McLean, Roberto Luongo, and Jacob Markstrom all played in the game, while Richard Brodeur was named to the All-Star Game but had to drop out due to injury, with Garrett taking his place.
Garrett famously came agonizingly close to winning MVP honours before Wayne Gretzky scored four goals in ten minutes in the third period to steal the award.
