NHL unveils format for 2027 All-Star Game weekend
On Tuesday afternoon, the NHL unveiled the format for the 2027 NHL All-Star Game weekend, which will be hosted by the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Long Island from Feb. 5-6, 2027.
On Friday the 5th, the league will hold a skills competition. There will be 10 participants, all age-25 and younger. There will be six initial events: fastest skater, hardest shot, passing, one-timers, stick handling, and accuracy shooting. The participants will earn points based upon how well they fare in the initial events.
Four of the ten players will advance to a shootout that will see them make attempts on one of the All-Star goalies. The two players who advance past the shootout will move on to an obstacle course finale, and the winner, which will be determined by the highest cumulative score, will take him a prize of $1 million.
For the festivities on Saturday, the team competition portion of the weekend will see an injection of the international competition that fans have enjoyed in both of the past two years with the 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2026 Winter Olympics, which were held when the league would have typically had its all-star break.
As with recent All-Star games, there will be a three-on-three tournament, with five teams involved. The United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland will all have their own teams, while a fifth team comprised of players from the rest of the world will round out the field.
The five teams will all carry nine skaters and a pair of goaltenders. The NHL and NHLPA will provide a list of 30 players eligible for each of the five teams, and beginning in December, fans will vote to decide eight of the players for each squad.
The NHL and NHLPA will then add one forward, one defenseman and one goaltender to each team to round out the rosters.
The round-robin games will last five minutes apiece. There can be ties, and the top two teams from the round robin will advance to a 10-minute final game, with the winning team splitting a prize of $2 million.