NHL highs and lows: all-stars and old stars, Bieber scores while Weber errs

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The NHL all-star game is a pause for breath before the dash to the play-offs. Rob McKenzie reviews the show and also salutes the San Jose Sharks’ mainstays, for whom an unprecedented milestone might be on the horizon.

1. Let the games begin

The NHL all-star game, perhaps taking a cue from basketball, has become less about sport and more about spectacle.

In the old days (1947-68) the game pitted the reigning league champs against a team of all-stars. But nowadays the players are paid so much that nobody, either player or owner, wants to risk having a star suffer an injury in a legit match. So they are doing more low-risk goofball stuff such as skills competitions.

And why not? It’s fun for the fans.

2. Drop it like it’s hot

The game was in LA so there were more celebrities on hand than if it were in, say, Buffalo.

Snoop Dogg performed the player intros for Saturday’s skills competition. This was followed by the NBCSN television network apologising for Snoop’s choice of songs. Seriously, how could they not see that coming?

Justin Bieber, who is nominally Canadian, took part in the celebrity shoot-out, which is glorified pond hockey. To tell the truth he wasn’t half bad. He was obviously way smaller than the NHL alumnae out there, such as Chris Pronger, who smooshed Bieber into the boards for laughs. But Bieber did skate hard and even got an empty-netter as his team won 5-3.

In other contests the Montreal defenceman Shea Weber clocked the hardest shot (again), Connor McDavid was the fastest skater and Sidney Crosby had the best aim. Also the Arizona goalie Mike Smith scored into a little hole in the net from the far end of the rink, using his goalie stick.

3. the game

The all-star game itself was an anticlimax. In the first round the Metropolitan division beat the Atlantic 10-6 and the Pacific skunked the Central 10-3. The final was not so wide open, with the Metropolitans beat the Pacific players 4-3. The games were played three-on-three and lasted 20 minutes each.

The all-star MVP award went to the big Philadelphia winger Wayne Simmonds, who scored three goals in the two rounds, including the winner in the final. This was sweet for Simmonds as LA is where he played his first three seasons in the league. The Kings traded him, along with Brayden Schenn, to the Flyers for Mike Richards in 2011. That trade is going all Philly’s way now, but Richards did help the Kings win Cups in 2012 and 2014.

4. Russian slapstick

Outside of Canada no country is as crazy for hockey as Russia. Inside of Canada it’s cold.

From the ponds of Moscow to the arenas of Ufa, the Russians love their hockey too. And it was in Ufa that, one week before the NHL staged its all-star show, the Kontinental Hockey League held its own all-star game.

And here was a comic touch that tells you something about life in Russia: in the penalty shot contest Matt Gilroy of Spartak Moscow skated towards the net, then stopped cold to pay a mock bribe of 5,000 roubles (about Dh300) to the Admiral Vladivostok goalie Igor Bobkov to leave the net and let him score. Bobkov took the loot and headed for the bench.

Back in the day, Gilroy won the Hobey Baker Award in 2009 as the best player in US collegiate hockey.

5. Marleau’s big night

Patrick Marleau is so old his first hockey card was a cave painting. At age 37 and a third, the man is ancient by non-Jagr NHL standards. But on Monday night in his 1,459th game in the league the pride of Aneroid, Saskatchewan did something that only 12 NHLers had ever done: he scored four goals in a single period.

Sure it was against the Colorado Avalanche, but it’s still impressive.

Trivia question: how many of the other players who got four goals in a period can you name? Their initials, in chronological order, are BJ, MB, CS, RB, WG, GM, BT, TK, AS, JN, PB and ML. If you get three, that’s pretty good. (Bonus clue: PB has an Abu Dhabi connection.)

Trivia answer is at the end of this slide show.

6. The 1,500 club

Joe Thornton has played 1,417 career NHL games, or one for each squirrel living in his beard.

Thornton is three months older than Marleau; the two of them were the first and second picks in the 1997 draft.

In some cases a sports veteran is referred to as a greybeard; in Thorton’s case it’s not a metaphor. He looks like a cross between Yukon Cornelius and a hermit.

I believe that around this point next season, barring setbacks, Marleau and Thornton will become the first ever NHL teammates to have both played more than 1,500 games. The closest before them were probably Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio in Detroit, but Howe left Motown while Delvecchio was around 1,400.

And if the Sharks sign Jaromir Jagr, they could have three players with 1,500 games under their belt.

Marleau and Thornton are pulling their weight for San Jose this season — Marleau scored the winner against Winnipeg one night after his four-goal feat and Thornton is second on the squad in assists — but the real star of this team is ...

7. Brent Burns

Burns is in the MVP conversation alongside Crosby, McDavid and maybe Devan Dubnyk.

The bearded behemoth — 6’5” and 230 pounds (196cm and 104kg) -- leads the Sharks in goals, assists, ice time and plus-minus. No teammate is within three minutes of his 24:56 of ice time a game.

I was watching San Jose play Edmonton on Thursday night (Friday morning in Abu Dhabi) and it felt like No 88 never left the ice, at least until he took a borderline penalty for lightly slashing McDavid in the face. Edmonton scored on the ensuing power play for a 2-1 lead, en route to a 3-1 win that snapped the Sharks’ six-game win streak.

Shortly after his penalty Burns was on D with McDavid racing towards the net. With a quick flick Burns slapped the puck away from McDavid as he stickhandled all fancy. It was like that scene in the last episode of The Wire when Marlo grabs a gun away from some street punk. Outta my space, kid.

8. So close

A regulation NHL game lasts 1,800 seconds.

Last Tuesday night against the Calgary Flames, Carey Price was perfect for 1,798.9 of those seconds.

But with the game down to its last ticks and Alexander Radulov in the penalty box for Montreal, Weber made a bad play, which is rare for him. The man is Montreal’s rock. He had a chance to clear the puck and finish off the Flames but his attempt to bank it off the glass was smartly gloved by Calgary’s Dougie Hamilton, who shot it into the crease area where Sam Bennett banged it home. Weber, upset with himself, was cursing as he reached the Habs bench.

Even the best make mistakes. When Chicago lost 5-3 to Winnipeg on Thursday, with the Jets scoring three late goals, it was a mistake by four-time all-star Duncan Keith that turned the tide. Winnipeg shot the puck behind the Hawks net, Keith went to the wrong side to get it, the Jets gained possession and evened things up.

9. Revolving netminders

Frederik Andersen got a shutout on Wednesday night as Toronto beat Detroit 4-0. Andersen used to play for Anaheim, which on that same night was getting shut out, 4-0, by Cam Talbot of Edmonton. Talbot used to play for the New York Rangers, who on that same night were getting shut out, 2-0, by Steve Mason of the Philadelphia Flyers.

The shutout was the second straight for Andersen. On Monday he had silenced Calgary 4-0.

10. Speaking of shutouts ...

Two days before his all-star feat Arizona’s Smith picked up his first shutout of the season. The Vancouver Canucks came into town on a roll, having played themselves to the cusp of a wild-card playoff spot — and Arizona are a team that Vancouver ought to be able to beat. Yet somehow the Canucks managed zero shots in last Thursday’s first period. Zero!

Smith deserved an easy night. He works hard. His team gives up a lot of shots, a flaw that reached its apogee on December 3 when Columbus fired 60 shots at Smith, who saved 58. The Yotes then lost in the shoot-out.

11. In summation

If the playoffs started today ... the matchups would be, in the east, Washington-Philadelphia, Montreal-Rangers, Columbus-Pittsburgh and Ottawa-Boston. The west would have Minnesota-Calgary, San Jose-St Louis, Chicago-Nashville and Edmonton-Anaheim. The Caps would have home ice advantage throughout. Note that Toronto is a point back of Philly but has three games in hand; the same is true of Los Angeles and Calgary.

Standouts: The stats leaders are: McDavid, 59 points; Crosby, 28 goals; Ryan Suter, +28; Dustin Byfuglien, 27:20 average ice time; Antoine Roussel, 102 penalty minutes; Dubnyk, 1.88 goals-against average; Braden Holtby, six shutouts.

Game to watch: Boston at Tampa Bay, Tuesday night. The Lightning were pre-season darlings but sit outside the playoff picture and need to make a push or else it’ll be time to start trading players with an eye towards next season.

12. Trivia answer

Besides Marleau the other players with four goals in one period are:

Busher Jackson (November 20, 1934), Max Bentley (January 28, 1943), Clint Smith (March 4, 1945), Red Berenson (November 7, 1968), Wayne Gretzky (February 18, 1981), Grant Mulvey (February 3, 1982), Bryan Trottier (February 13, 1982), Tim Kerr (Apr. 13, 1985), Al Secord (January 7, 1987), Joe Nieuwendyk (January 11, 1989), Peter Bondra (February 5, 1994) and Mario Lemieux (January 26, 1997).

Bondra got his four goals in 4 minutes and 12 seconds, which is pretty incredible. Marleau (meh) needed 13:30.

Bondra, you may recall, was in Abu Dhabi in November for a hockey camp and spotted the stick skills of the Emirati player Fatima Al Ali. The payoff: in a Skype call on December 21, Bondra (and Etihad) invited Al Ali to a Caps home game in February, with tickets and flight for free.

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