NHL All-Star Game 3-on-3 Format, Metropolitan Division Prove to Be Winners

The NHL past met the NHL present on Sunday when the surviving 100 great players were joined by the 2017 All-Star players to drop the pucks for a monumental 3-on-3 tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Before the game began, Grammy winner Carly Rae Jepsen took to the ice to sing the Canadian national anthem for the many players from north of the border.

After one of the members of Fifth Harmony fell ill last minute, Los Angeles Kings Ice Crew member Courtney Daniels stood in to save the day by singing the “Star Spangled Banner” — and she nailed it.

Next, it fell on the league’s top players — divided into four All-Star teams: Pacific, Central, Atlantic and Metropolitan — to keep up the high level of energy, a challenge they more than achieved as they faced off for a winner-take-all $1 million prize.

Playing under the 3-on-3 format for the second consecutive year, each game was 20 minutes long, with teams changing at the 10-minute mark of each game. Those that were tied after 20 minutes were decided by a shootout.

The Pacific Team was the first to score (proving home ice advantage?) with L.A. Kings local favorites Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty among the players, but they were beaten out in the finals by the Metropolitan Division led by Wayne Gretzky and assistant Paul Coffey, (late replacements for Columbus Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella who was looking after a sick dog).

Metropolitan Division forward Wayne Simmonds scored the game-winning goal, the MVP honors and a sweet 2017 Honda Ridgeline truck, as the team — which included Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Cam Atkinson — took home the giant $1 million check.

The 2017 NHL All-Star Game was also a winner for host network NBC, and averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 2.28 million viewers across NBC and NBC Sports Digital platforms, according to Fast National data released by the Nielsen Company, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

According to the network, the NBC-only broadcast averaged 2.262 million viewers, up 42 percent vs. the 2016 NHL All-Star Game on NBCSN (1.595 million) and up 46 percent vs. NBC’s 2015-16 NHL regular-season average (1.545 million). This year’s game, which marked the event’s return to network television, was the most-watched NHL All-Star Game since 2004, and delivered a 1.32 household rating, up 47 percent vs. 2016 (0.90; NBCSN).