NHL adds crazy shot accuracy event to All-Star Skills Competition

With the glorious prop comedy of the Breakaway Challenge dead and buried by the NHL and its players, the All-Star Skills Competition needed a replacement event.

According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the new event is going to basically be Score-O on steroids.

Here are the details on “The Four-Line Challenge” at the Los Angeles All-Star Game:

With the demise of the breakaway challenge, which was as much the players’ decision as the league’s, the skills competition adds what’s called “The Four Line Challenge” as a replacement.

Players will try to hit targets in the net from the closest blueline, centre ice, the far blueline and then the opposite goal line. Goalies will be offered the chance to try from the farthest distance, with more points available if they can do it.

So the NHL and the NHLPA do away with the hockey equivalent of the NBA slam-dunk competition in favor of the hockey-equivalent of the NBA three-point shooting competition.

Is this thing going to work? Potentially. The long-range shots are going to be fun, as they always are with an empty net at the other end, and it’s good to see the goalies getting involved in some way that goes beyond being props for shooters at the All-Star Game.

Guess it’s too much to ask that we get a 25-point bonus target on the safety netting …

And seeing as how we’re still mourning the loss of another event: Any chance these guys can wear goofy hats or Chewbacca masks while they shoot? Huh? Please?

—

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

MORE FROM YAHOO SPORTS