The NHL All-Star Game is going to look a little different next season.
On Tuesday, the league unveiled the format for the 2027 NHL All-Star Weekend, which is set to take place Feb. 5 and 6 at UBS Arena in Long Island, New York.
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The All-Star Game itself will feature five different teams: the United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden and what the league is calling a “world” team which will be comprised of international players from countries outside of the other four nations.
And yes, the league likely is making this transition based off the success of last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
Each of the five teams will be made up of 11 players, with nine skaters and two goalies.
Based off comments from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly during a press conference ahead of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, it does not sound like Russian players will be included with the “world” team, not until a time if/when the IIHF allows Russia to compete again.
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The NHL will select 30 players from each of the five teams for fans to vote on in order to create the rosters, with the 2027 NHL All-Star Fan Vote officially opening in December.
Fans will select eight players for each of the five teams, leaving the NHL and NHLPA to jointly select one forward, one defenseman and one goaltender to fill out each squad.
All five teams will play four 5-minute games as part of a round-robin tournament, and then the top two teams will advance to a 10-minute final match. The tournament will follow a point system of two points for a win, one point for a tie and zero points for a loss. There will only be overtime for the final match.
The winning team will take home a cool $2 million prize.
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Additionally, the NHL All-Star Skills competition is undergoing some changes as well.
There will be eight total events and only ten players will participate.
All players will all be 25 years old or younger, with each participant selected jointly by the NHL and NHLPA.
The first six events are pretty traditional: Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Passing Challenge, One-Timers, Stick Handling and Accuracy Shooting.
After that, the top four players advance to a shootout, where they’ll have to face the All-Star goaltenders, and then the top two competitors will battle in the last event, which is called the Obstacle Course Finale.
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The player crowned Skills Competition champion will be awarded a prize of $1 million.
So, in a nutshell, there’s your All-Star Weekend for next season.
Assuming the Florida Panthers aren’t decimated by injuries again, it’s reasonable to think that there could be some solid South Florida representation at the annual gathering of talent.
Interestingly, just as it was when the NHL held its 4 Nations Face-Off, the Panthers are likely to be represented by only those same four countries.
Looking at potential All-Star candidates from Florida’s current roster, Matthew Tkachuk and Seth Jones could easily get tapped by Team USA, and it’s not hard to imagine youngster Mackie Samoskevich making a case for himself to be a part of the 25-and-under Skills Competition.
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The Panthers have several Canadians on their roster who could easily receive All-Star consideration with strong showings next season.
Sam Reinhart, Brad Marchand and Aaron Ekblad have all participated at the NHL All-Star Game before, and we’ve seen what happens when Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe get going.
Florida has one of the deeper Finnish contingents in the NHL, as evidenced by their representation at both 4 Nations and this year’s Winter Olympics.
With the All-Star rosters being quite limited in size, though, it’s likely that only a fraction of Florida’s Finns receive consideration.
Obviously that includes Panthers captain and world class two-way center Sasha Barkov, who also captains the Finnish National Team. Fellow Florida centerman Anton Lundell continues to improve and impress year-over-year, and he could easily find himself on the short list of potential All-Stars should he continue on that path and have a strong start to his season.
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Team Sweden will take a good look at Panthers blueliner Gus Forsling, as he has grown into one of the top two-way defensemen in the game.
Again, considering its an All-Star game with a limited roster, Forsling could end up an odd-man out among some very good Swedish defensemen such as Victor Hedman, Rasmus Dahlin and Erik Karlsson.
Now keep in mind that plenty of things could change between now and next season, though.
Florida’s roster could end up looking a bit different depending how things shake out between the NHL Draft at the end of the month, free agency opening on July 1 and the days and weeks that follow.
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Let us know in the comments below which Panthers players you think will be heading to Long Island for next season’s All-Star festivities.
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Photo caption: Feb 3, 2024; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Team McDavid center Sam Reinhart (13) of the Florida Panthers skates during the warmup before the 2024 NHL All-Star Game at Scotiabank Arena. (Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images)
