2018 NHL All-Star Mini Game

It was quite the afternoon worth of hockey on Sunday, coming off a pretty impressive skills competition, the 3-on-3 tournament was fairly entertaining, even if it was a little more defensive than the previous year.

The first game on the docket was the Western Conference showdown between the Pacific Division and the Central Division and this was a tightly contested affair, which was only 1-0 at half time.  The Pacific got the best of the Central again though, thanks to a solid effort from Connor McDavid and his 4 assists, not to mention a couple of empty-netters late in the game, helped boost the scoring numbers a little bit.

Between McDavid and Johnny Gaudreau, Steve got off to a pretty good start, picking up 5 points in the opening game, jetting to an early lead.

The Eastern Conference game was a little bit more of a wide open affair and it got the attention of the scorekeepers.  The home team, the Atlantic Division, didn't disappoint, as they were having some pretty mad dangles and nifty passes, getting the best of the Metropolitan Division, under a 7-4 decision.  Nikita Kucherov was a the hero for the home side, picking up a hat-trick, giving Neil some hope in the mini-game.

Dale B. added to a decent start from the West game and was chasing down Steve, tying his 5 points through two games, while Steve didn't have any representation in the East game.  Benson was also having a good day, but most of his points were eliminated with two of three guys were on the Atlantic team.

Moving to the finals, it was the Pacific versus the Atlantic and it was the team from out west that got off to a quick start and never really looked back.  Rickard Rakell had the biggest game in the final, picking up a couple of goals and an assist to help guide the Pacific to a 5-2 win and this was a rare occurrence, where the goalie in the first half of the game, Marc-Andre Fleury, was in net for the winning goal, picking up the 2 points for Scott's team in the end.

But for Steve, the player of the game for him was Johnny Gaudreau, who had a goal and an assist to help guide his team to the mini-game title, taking it with 7 points, 1 point clear of the two teams that belonged to Dale B. and Troy.

Steve has one mini-game in the bank now and he also has a line on the plus/minus department, which will make for a great season, despite being in last place in the overall standings.