LAS VEGAS – With a backdrop and a flair only Sin City can provide, the NHL's all-stars are in the desert this weekend prepared to do what?
Put on a good show, of course.
After not taking place last year due to the pandemic, the NHL All-Star game is here Saturday afternoon in T-Mobile Arena, but a lot of early attention to the weekend will go to two outdoor events for Friday night's All-Star Skills events.
An 82-game season is grind. This one is a double grind. Sabres coach Don Granato has to make sure his team continues to battle and doesn't buckle, Mike Harrington says.
One is called "Fountain Face-Off" and will take place on the iconic fountains at the Bellagio Hotel that face the Strip. Players will travel by boat to the “rink” and have to successfully shoot pucks into five targets in the least amount of time while dealing with fountain spray and the wind off the Strip. Among the eight participants are NHL scoring leader Jonathan Huberdeau of Florida, Vegas forward Mark Stone and former U.S. women's Olympian Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson.
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"Las Vegas NHL 21 in '22" will take place on the Strip itself as players will shoot at an oversized deck of cards in an ode to street hockey and blackjack. The object is to achieve a hand as close to 21 without going bust in the least amount of shots. The five shooters are Toronto's Auston Matthews, Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos, Colorado's Nazem Kadri, Ottawa's Brady Tkachuk and Dallas' Joe Pavelski.
The Skills are Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and the game is Saturday at 3 on ABC, with both networks getting their first chance at the event since signing their new rightsholders deals to start this season.
The game will maintain the same format it has used since 2016, with 3-on-3 play among teams formed by the league's four divisions. Each team will play a 20-minute semifinal game, with the two winners advancing to the 20-minute championship. The 11 players on the winning team will split a $1 million prize.
Defenseman Rasmus Dahlin is the Sabres' representative in the game and he is the only blueliner entered in the Accuracy Shooting challenge. His opponents are Edmonton's Leon Draisaitl, Arizona's Clayton Keller, Carolina's Sebastian Aho, Pittsburgh's Jake Guentzel, Anaheim's Troy Terry, Calgary's Johnny Gaudreau, Boston's Patrice Bergeron and Vegas' Jonathan Marchessault.
Dahlin has seven goals and 28 points in 44 games this season while averaging 23:46 of ice time a night, more than two minutes a game above last season's career high of 21:36. Especially in the past two months, he's drawn big minutes and big praise from coach Don Granato.
"A world of confidence can come from that type of experience and being put in that type of a category," Granato said recently. "He's deserving. ... He's starting to identify with how to get better with what his skills sets are. And how to impose at the right moments instead of trying to do it all the time."
The Golden Knights overwhelmed the Sabres early, scoring twice in the first and second periods en route to a 5-2 win Tuesday night.
With Rasmus Ristolainen gone, Dahlin has drawn the opposition's top matchups all season. Some nights have been a struggle, as his minus-14 rating would attest. But Dahlin is still posting a 49% Corsi rating at even strength and a 52.5% mark in all situations.
"It's a battle, challenging for sure, but it's fun," he said recently of his top matchups. "You can't really make a mistake because they'll score. You have to focus for 60 minutes, really dig in, really be prepared."
Dahlin has been in Vegas since the Sabres arrived Sunday night following their loss in Colorado. He played 22:11 in Buffalo's 5-2 loss here to the Golden Knights on Tuesday.
The other Skills events are Fastest Skater, which has been dominated by Edmonton's Connor McDavid; Save Streak, a showcase for the goaltenders; Hardest Shot; and Breakaway Challenge, which will feature non-All-Star Trevor Zegras of Anaheim and will include guest goaltenders Manon Rheaume (the first woman to play goal in an NHL game, in 1992 for Tampa Bay) and actor Wyatt Russell.
McDavid has won Fastest Skater three times and can set an NHL record with a fourth win to snap a tie with Hall of Famer Mike Gartner, who won the event three times in the 1990s.
There are 21 first-time All-Stars here and it's the first time since 2007 that the game doesn't feature at least one of the trio of Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby, Chicago winger and South Buffalo native Patrick Kane and Washington captain Alex Ovechkin, who was ruled out Tuesday after testing positive for Covid-19.
The Sabres' retiring play-by-play man made one final jaunt west with the team this week, attending a Sabres "Road Crew" event for the first time since before the pandemic.
Ovechkin was the Metropolitan Division captain and the Central also will be without its captain as Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon will miss the game after facial surgery last week following a hit by Boston's Taylor Hall.
The NHL's trip here is just part of a busy week in Sin City. The East-West Shrine game for college football talent was set for Thursday night while the NFL's Pro Bowl is here on Sunday.
Both of those events are at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders that is about 1½ miles from T-Mobile Arena via Dean Martin Drive. Yes, Vegas' famous Rat Pack all have streets named after them, with Frank Sinatra Drive winding directly behind the arena.
Houser off to Amerks
Sabres goalie Michael Houser cleared waivers Thursday and was assigned to the Rochester Amerks. He won both his starts for the Sabres before being placed on the Covid-19 list on Friday, just before the club was leaving to start its road trip in Arizona. The positive test presumably kept Houser from starting at least two of the three games and perhaps all three, given the tenuous health status of Craig Anderson and Dustin Tokarski.
Houser will join Aaron Dell back in the Rochester net. Dell, who was 1-8-1 in Buffalo, improved to 6-0 in the AHL this year with Rochester's 5-1 win Wednesday over Charlotte. The Amerks and Checkers meet again Friday night in Blue Cross Arena.
