Morgan Rielly throws Ausron Matthews under the bus ahead of All-Star skills competition
The stakes are high for the NHL All-Star skills competition this season, with a cool $1 million prize awarded to this year's winner. Unlike in years past, this year, the skills competition is reserved for the elite players in the NHL, rather than a larger collection of the players present at the event. Also, unlike in previous years, all competitors will compete in all events, with a series of eliminations taking place before a winner is crowned.
This year's competitors have already been selected. These players include Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, David Pastrnak, Nikita Kucherov, Jack Hughes, Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Quinn Hughes and, of course Auston Matthews and William Nylander.
With a few teams having two representatives in the skills competition, the $1M prize isn't the only thing players are concerned with. They also want the bragging rights. In the case of William Nylander and Auston Matthews, the Leafs' two leading scorers, there will be some very important bragging rights ripe for the taking.
Naturally, professional athletes are very competitive, even when they sit near one another in the locker room. For Matthews and Nylander next week's festivities will be a good opportunity to go head to head with one another to see whose skills match up better against the other. Fellow Leaf Morgan Rielly already knows how important this event is to both players.
During an interview this week with NHL.com, Rielly told Dave McCarthy that he thinks Matthews would be more rattled to lose to Nylander than Nylander would be to lose to Matthews.
Rielly also thinks that whoever wins, they'll not soon let their teammates in Toronto forget it. Especially their direct competitor. Rielly's plan is to pick one of Matthews or Nylander for the skills event and offer his undying support. He confirmed that if the horse he backs happens to win, he'll harp on the other guy without remorse.
As far as who has the edge in the individual events, according to their teammate, Ilya Samsonov, he believes Nylander would have a better chance to be the fastest skater over Matthews. He also thinks Nylander has the harder shot. As far as the other events, he believes that both are a toss-up for the passing challenge and the stick-handling challenge, but that Matthews will run away with the shooting accuracy.
Mitch Marner is most looking forward to the shooting accuracy challenge as well. He is leaning Matthews as well, but warns folks to not discount Nylander's accuracy either.
It should be a fun week next week, starting with the All-Star Draft on Thursday, the Skills Competition on Friday and then the games themselves taking place on Saturday. With Toronto as the host city, I'm sure the event will be over the top.
| POLL | ||
JANVIER 27 | 496 ANSWERS Morgan Rielly throws Ausron Matthews under the bus ahead of All-Star skills competition Who do you think will finish higher in the NHL All-Star skills competition between Matthews and Nylander? | ||
| Matthews | 306 | 61.7 % |
| Nylander | 190 | 38.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
