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NHL's best impress during 3-on-3 All-Star tournament
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- NHL's best impress during 3-on-3 All-Star tournament
While the NHL All-Star festivities are a fun for the fans to watch, the 3-on-3 tournament highlighting the league's best isn't always that enjoyable as a goaltender.
With plenty of ice available and a boatload of skill on it, there was buckets of offence at the SAP Centre in San Jose on Saturday.
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Game 3: Metropolitan Division vs. Central Division (Championship)
Coming off their gutsy win over the Atlantic (well, as gutsy as an All-Star game can get), the Metropolitan's momentum carried nicely into the final. Mathew Barzal of the New York Islanders , Philadelphia's Claude Giroux and Pittsburgh's Kris Letang each scored to give the Metro a quick 3-0 advantage.
That lead stretched to four when New Jersey's Kyle Palmieri picked up the garbage in front of the Central net following a great individual effort by teammate Seth Jones of the Columbus Blue Jackets . Then, with four seconds remaining in the first half, Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby made it 5-0.
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The spotlight was on the scorers, but Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers did put together a pretty solid 10-minute shutout to propel the Metro to that demanding lead.
After the goaltenders for each side switched at the half, the Central got on the board. Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog wired the puck past Washington's Braden Holtby . That seemed to give them some hope and the pace of play picked up as a result.
Colorado's Mikko Rantanen fired a one-timer into the back of the net a little later to make it a 5-2 contest.
A pretty finish on the doorstep by Crosby put the Metro up four once again.
Following some pretty even play down the stretch, the Metropolitan went on to secure a 10-5 victory and the $1 million prize that came with it.
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Game 2: Atlantic Division vs. Metropolitan Division
Within the first few minutes of the contest, the Metropolitan division had found the back of the net twice. That's when the Atlantic woke up. Buffalo's Jack Eichel and Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos beat Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers to knot things back up before the game was even four minutes old.
Oh! And it should be mentioned that Stamkos' tally was disgusting.
After the initial offensive outburst, Lundqvist and Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy were solid for the rest of the half for their respective sides. Well, that was the case until Columbus' Seth Jones ripped his second of the game into the top corner in the dying moments of the period to give the Metropolitan a 3-2 lead.
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Buffalo's Jeff Skinner knotted things up early in the second half with a stunning flick past Washington's Braden Holtby. The Atlantic then grabbed the lead less than a minute later when Toronto's John Tavares put a shot between the posts.
The entertaining, back-and-forth contest continued as Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby beat Detroit's Jimmy Howard to make it 4-4.
It would stay that was until just over three minutes remaining. Crosby's teammate Kris Letang found himself on a breakaway and scored to give the Metropolitan the lead once again. Another Metro tally off the stick of Philadelphia's Claude Giroux with just under two minutes left gave his side the 6-4 advantage.
In the end, the Metropolitan division took it by a final score of 7-4 to set up the final against the Central division.
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Game 1: Central Division vs. Pacific Division
Coming into the 2019 edition of the tourney, the Central division had never won a game. They quickly changed that against the hosts and the rest of the Pacific as it didn't take long for their offensive brilliance to shine through.
Colorado's Mikko Rantanen found the back of the net just over a minute into the first 10-minute half and his teammate with the Avalanche, Gabriel Landeskog, did the same shortly after to give their side the early 2-0 edge.
A breakaway for Erik Karlsson on his home ice in San Jose got the crowd excited and the Sharks' blueliner slid it past Nashville's Pekka Rinne to get the Pacific on the board.
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Tallies by Nashville's Roman Josi, Chicago's Patrick Kane, Winnipeg's Mark Scheifele and Rantanen again put the Central back in control, though. By the end of the first half, they were up 7-1.
Simply put: it wasn't fun to be Anaheim's John Gibson for that frame.
By the end of the game, the Central came away with the 10-4 victory in the Western Conference clash. However, the highlight of the contest wasn't one of those twine-ticklers. That actually went to Minnesota's goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who flashed the leather on Edmonton's Connor McDavid during a breakaway in the second half.
(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
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