After some heavy deliberation yesterday, the Eastern Conference captains have made their selections for tonight’s skills competition, assigning at least one of the Caps to participate in four of the six events. And unlike past years, this might actually matter – the winning team gets to decide if they want their three-on-three game to be the first or second of the two semifinals tomorrow. Now those are some high stakes…
Here’s how it shakes out for the East:
Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater
Honda NHL Breakaway Challenge
Evgeny Kuznetsov, WSH
P.K. Subban, MTL
DraftKings NHL Accuracy Shooting
Nicklas Backstrom, WSH (passer)
Jaromir Jagr, FLA (passer)
Gatorade NHL Skills Challenge Relay
Nicklas Backstrom, WSH (mini net passer)
Justin Faulk, CAR (puck control)
Braden Holtby, WSH (goalie goals)
Evgeny Kuznetsov, WSH (mini net passer)
Kris Letang, PIT (puck control)
Discover NHL Shootout
Patrice Bergeron, BOS
Nicklas Backstrom, WSH
Steven Stamkos, TBL
Evgeny Kuznetsov, WSH
Ryan McDonagh, NYR
Braden Holtby, WSH (goaltender)
Claude Giroux, PHI
Catch the Caps and those other schlubs live on NBCSN in the U.S. and on CBC, Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada at 7 p.m., ET / 6 p.m., CT.
Need a refresher on the rules? Click here for the full breakdown of events and scoring.