NHL All-Star Game 2024, who’s playing, and what’s going on?

It’s that time of the year again when competitive hockey is briefly put aside to celebrate the best players in the NHL This year’s event is being held in the hockey heartland of Toronto, Canada. Let’s take a look at who’s playing and what they’re getting up to this year!

This year, there are four teams that have been drafted, each team has two NHL captains plus a celebrity captain.

Team Matthews is captained by the Leafs’ Auston Matthews and Morgan Rielly of the Ducks, their celebrity captain is Justin Bieber. Detailed by ESPN, the rest of their team is as follows, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Jake Oettinger, Clayton Keller, Mathew Barzal, Igor Shesterkin, Filip Forsberg, Alex DeBrincat, and Vincent Trocheck.

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Team McDavid is led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, both from the Oilers and boast Will Arnett as their celebrity captain. They also boast a strong team, including, Connor Hellebuyck, David Pastrnak, Rasmus Dahlin, Robert Thomas, Sam Reinhart, Sergei Bobrovsky, Boone Jenner, Nick Suzuki, and Tomas Hertl.

Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Tate McRae make up the captains on Team MacKinnon, while the rest of their team is as follows, Sidney Crosby, Alexandar Georgiev, Kirill Kaprizov, Sebastian Aho, Tom Wilson, Jeremy Swayman, Travis Konecny, Elias Lindholm, Oliver Bjorkstrand.

Last but not least is Team Hughes, captained by the Hughes brothers, Quinn of the Canucks and Jack of the Devils. The Hughes’ leadership group is rounded out by Elias Pettersson, and crooner, Michael Bublé. They drafted, Nikita Kucherov, Thatcher Demko, Kyle Connor, Brady Tkachuk, Jesper Bratt, Cam Talbot, Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller, Frank Vatrano, per NHL.

Connor Bedard and Jack Eichel, of the Blackhawks and Golden Knights respectively are missing through injury but were selected to the All-Star weekend.

According to ESPN, this year’s skill competition is a little different to previous years, with just 12 of the All-Stars competing in various skills competitions, scoring points for placement in each one. The player with the most points at the end will win a cool $1 million.

The skill games this year include: fastest skater, hardest shot, stickhandling, one-times, passing challenges, accuracy shooting, NHL shootout, and an NHL obstacle course. The final two events will feature the top eight contestants, and then just the top six after that with the winner being anointed after the obstacle course.

The new format is a little difficult to follow as not all competitors will compete in each skill game, instead there are just 12 players competing, as “each player chose four of the first six events in which to compete; the four lowest scoring players after those first six will be eliminated,” according to ESPN.

Following the skill games on Friday, the teams will return to the ScotiaBank Arena for the All-Star games on Saturday, the 3rd of February. Each matchup will be three-on-three with Team MacKinnon taking on Team McDavid before Team Hughes takes on Team Matthews with the winners meeting to decide the winner of the All-Star Game, per the Bleacher Report.

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