TORONTO — It was the two Rangers All-Star players versus the Rangers All-Star coach in the final game.
A showdown between the best of the best in New York, including Islanders star center Mathew Barzal, who teamed up with the Blueshirts’ No. 1 goalie Igor Shesterkin and second-line center Vincent Trocheck to defeat their head coach, Peter Laviolette, for the All-Star Game crown Saturday evening.
Laviolette stood behind the bench for Team Connor McDavid, while Shesterkin and Trocheck competed for Team Auston Matthews in front of an enthusiastic and lively crowd of all different fandoms inside Scotiabank Arena.
It was ultimately the Rangers players who prevailed in a 7-4 win for Team Matthews, giving Trocheck and Shesterkin bragging rights over Laviolette when they return to practice in New York at MSG Training Center on Sunday ahead of the final 33 games of the regular season.
There will surely be chirps, but it was all in good fun after an eventful weekend in Toronto for the Rangers’ bunch.
Trocheck got to experience his second All-Star appearance with his 5-year-old son, Leo, who skated on the Scotiabank Arena ice sporting his dad’s Rangers jersey before the skills competition Friday — a moment the two will likely never forget.
Shesterkin, on the other hand, more than held his own in all the competitions against some of the NHL’s best skaters in his second All-Star Weekend.
Maybe it was enough to give the Russian netminder a boost of confidence before going back to the regular season.
Team Matthews and Team McDavid were locked at 3-3 heading into the second half of the final game.
Filip Forsberg and Matthews then each scored in the final 10 minutes to pull ahead 5-3 before the Red Wings’ Alex Debrincat scored an empty-net goal for the three-goal lead.
The Sharks’ Tomas Hertl scored for Team McDavid with less than a minute and a half left, but Barzal netted his first of the day on a two-on-none rush to put the game out of reach.
Shesterkin gave up three goals in the first half of the game — to Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner, the Bruins’ David Pastrnak and the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl — before Stars goalie Jake Oettinger took over the net for the second half.
Trocheck, Shesterkin and the rest of Team Matthews went goal-for-goal with Team Jack and Quinn Hughes in a fast-paced second game.
With Shesterkin in goal for the second half of the 20-minute contest, Trocheck assisted on Filip Forsberg’s 4-3 score.
Shesterkin may have given up goals to the Canucks’ Elias Pettersson, the Senators’ Brady Tkachuk and the Panthers’ Frank Vatrano in regulation, but he made crucial stops on the Devils’ Jesper Bratt and the Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov.
The Rangers netminder, however, was impenetrable in the shootout to lead his team to victory.
After making saves on Kucherov, Pettersson and the Jets’ Kyle Connor, Shesterkin capped off a perfect shootout performance with a poke check on the Canucks’ J.T. Miller.
Laviolette and Team McDavid found themselves down, 3-1, in the first game of the day against Team Nathan MacKinnon, which naturally received two regulation goals from MacKinnon himself.
After Laviolette pulled his goalie with roughly 1:30 left on the clock, Pastrnak made it a one-goal game with 31.5 seconds remaining.
McDavid then scored with 5.4 seconds left to force a shootout, where the Oilers captain and Pastrnak were the only players to score to complete the comeback.
Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky denied Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and MacKinnon to help secure the victory for Team McDavid.
