The skills competition was the one thing that was never made remote at All-Star weekend, at least for me. Since the event was scrapped this season to make way for the 4 Nations showdown, watching the Montreal Canadiens hold their annual skills competition was fun. For the second year in a row, the Habs had invited players from the PWHL’s Victoire de Montreal, and Jennifer Gardiner stole the show at the precision shooting event.
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As usual, the players were put to the test in five competitions: speed skating, relay race, precision shooting, hard shooting, and a shootout round. The latter was essentially an unconventional shooting session to please the young fans.
Unsurprisingly, Alex Newhook won the fastest skater competition. The relay race was a close affair between the Red team and the White team. Red won the team contest, but Cole Caufield beat Nick Suzuki in the individual contest.
The most anticipated competition was the toughest shot, as Arber Xhekaj impressed last year with a 107.2 mph shot (not that far off Zdeno Chara’s NHL record of 108.8 mph and even closer to Shea Weber’s 107.9 mph). The gritty Blueliner won the contest again this year with a 101.2 mph effort, just 0.1 mph over Mike Matheson’s 101.1 mph shot.
The surprise of the day came in the precision shot competition; Defenseman Mike Matheson looked headed for victory and beat all of his teammates with a mark of 12.092 seconds, but one Victoire player decided his team wasn’t going to go down empty-handed. No, it wasn’t captain Marie-Philip Poulin, but rookie Jennifer Gardiner.
A second-round pick, Gardiner is having a great rookie season with 12 points in 17 PWHL contests. She even scored the goal of the rivalry series earlier this month, breaking a 1-1 tie late in the third frame of the seventh game. However, on Sunday morning in Montreal, she stole the show by destroying all four goals in just 9.457 seconds. Not only did she beat everyone else in the competition that time, but she would have also beaten four of the last five winners at All-Star weekend. Only Connor McDavid in 2024, with a time of 9.158, was faster than her. The record belongs to Daniel Sedin in 2011; he smashed all four targets in 7.3 seconds.
Players who are dealing with minor injuries or ailments did not participate and were in the dugout, separated from Brendan Gallagher who did not appear to be there… has the baby timer started?
The Habs will get back to business on Tuesday when they host the Carolina Hurricanes at 7:00 p.m. at the Bell Center.