NHL All-Star predictions: Skills Competition odds, picks

The NHL has revamped the annual All-Star Skills Competition this season in order to create some more excitement.

Years ago, the skills competition was a night every hockey fan circled on their calendar, but it’s certainly lost some bite in recent iterations and thus the league has decided to overhaul it. 

Instead of having all 32 All-Stars participate in the Skills Competition, the league has designated a dozen players to compete in the challenge and has put a million dollars up for grabs for the winner.

The 12 players (and their FanDuel odds to win) are: Connor McDavid (+750), Cale Makar (+850), Nathan MacKinnon (+850), Nikita Kucherov (+850), David Pastrnak (+850), Mathew Barzal (+850), Quinn Hughes (+900), Leon Draisaitl (+900), Elias Pettersson (+900), Auston Matthews (10/1), J.T. Miller (10/1) and William Nylander (11/1). 

Each player will compete in four of the first six events: fastest skater, hardest shot, stickhandling, one-timers, passing challenge and accuracy shooting. 

First place will be worth five points, second place four points, etc. 

After the first six events, the standings will be calculated and the top eight players will advance to the seventh event, which is a shootout. 

The top six players after the shootout will advance to the final challenge, which is an obstacle course and will be worth double the points.

Whoever has the most points at the end of all of this wins the $1 million prize. 

Got all that? Good. 

Before we get to the picks, it’s worth acknowledging this event is likely a total crapshoot.

You can try to come up with a decent game-theory handicapping angle, but this is the debut for this version of the Skills Competition and it’s anybody’s guess how it plays out. 

With that out of the way, here are two players I think could be worth targeting Friday night: 

It may be a boring pick to go with No. 97 in this spot since he’s one of the co-favorites and will likely be the chalk, but it’s worth remembering the NHL consulted with McDavid to come up with this competition.

Whether that helps him here remains to be seen, but he’s already the best player in the world, so giving him a potential edge over the competition seems a bit unfair. 

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A couple of these events (fastest skater, accuracy and the obstacle course) seem to be right up McDavid’s alley and I could see this becoming one of those classic handicapping situations where bettors try to get too cute and fade the chalk, but then kick themselves for not keeping it simple when McDavid skates off with the prize. 

I am a little surprised that Nylander is the biggest long shot in this competition.

Nylander is a smooth skater with incredible hands and he’s one of the game’s best passers.

He should be live to win just about any of these events and would be a real threat to lift the trophy if he’s one of the six players to make it to the obstacle course.