TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks will be well represented at the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend thanks to voting fans.
Maple Leafs forwards William Nylander, Mitchell Marner and defenceman Morgan Rielly were added to the All-Star Game rosters via the 2024 NHL All-Star Fan Vote announced by the NHL on Saturday. Those Leafs will join forward Auston Matthews when they host the event at Scotiabank Arena on Feb. 1-3.
It will be the third All-Star Game appearance for Marner, and the first for Nylander and Rielly.
Canucks forwards J.T. Miller (first appearance), Brock Boeser (second), Elias Pettersson (fourth), and goalie Thatcher Demko (second) were also voted in and will join defenceman Quinn Hughes in Toronto.
More than 36 million votes were cast over eight days in the fan vote. Demko led all players with 1,398,699 while Nylander was second in the vote and led all skaters with 1,393,578. Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar also topped one million votes with 1,065,367.
Earlier Saturday, goalie Alexandar Georgiev of the Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, and goalies Sergei Bobrovsky of the Florida Panthers and Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins were named the first five winners of the fan vote.
Those 12 (eight skaters, four goalies) will join the 32 players selected by the NHL, including Matthews and Hughes, who were announced Jan. 4
All-Star Weekend will have a completely new look this year. The player draft will return as part of a new event: NHL All-Star Thursday.
Celebrities will be paired with captains for the Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft. They will pick the four teams of 11 players (nine skaters, two goalies) for the NHL All-Star Game.
The skills competition, which will be held Feb. 2, with 12 NHL All-Stars competing for points in eight events, with the NHL All-Star who accumulates the most points taking home a prize of $1 million.
Each player will compete in four of the first six events listed below, earning points for their respective finish in each event.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 13, 2024.
The Canadian Press
