Auston Matthews Facing Sidney Crosby In Skills Competition

The NHL All-Star game is intended entirely for amusement, but not all of the players that end up being there actually deserve it. Auston Matthews does.

Leafs fans don’t have to go that far back in time before Auston Matthews to find a player sent to the All-Star game simply because there needs to be one representative from each team (Komarov).

Auston Matthews has gradually become more and more dominant throughout his rookie season and will draw the NHL’s best player in the skills competition.

In the Skills Challenge Relay, Matthews will face Sidney Crosby for the stick handling portion of the event. Matthews will also face Crosby in the accuracy event.

For Matthews, heading to the All-Star game is a great acknowledgement of how well he’s played so far this year and it gives him a chance to line up with, and against, some of the best in the business.

@nhl #allstar Weekend begun #LA #losangeles @Sportsnet #tml #leafs @LeafsHub #nhl #hockey #hollywood @runTBC @AM34 @MapleLeafs #tmltalk pic.twitter.com/YdI7f1I27d

— Patrick Helpard (@trickgh83) January 28, 2017

He’s the type of professional that will likely pick the brains of some of the players and take away a valuable pointer, or two, while he’s having fun in LA this weekend.

Last year, the All-Star game was all about John Scott and the voting system that sent him to the game. This year it’s about all of the players – including the best player in the world, the best goal scorer in the world, the top two picks in the 2016 NHL draft and the current 2nd year phenom leading the NHL in scoring.

While I’m not a big fan of the all-star weekend in general, there are a lot of high end players for this event this year that the game hasn’t seen in several years – at least not this high end.

The skills competition starts at 8pm ET, if you’re interested in a little one-on-one between Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews.