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Team Matthews beats Team McDavid 7-4 in NHL All-Star Game / Photo: © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
Team Matthews beats Team McDavid 7-4 in NHL All-Star Game
Auston Matthews scored two goals in the championship game to earn the Most Valuable Player award as Team Matthews beat Team Connor McDavid 7-4 in Saturday's NHL All-Star Game final.
The 26-year-old American, who leads the NHL with 40 goals this season for the Toronto Maple Leafs, delighted fans in his team's home arena by sparking his hand-picked squad to the overall crown.
"Winning it is a cherry on top," Matthews said. "We had some guys play unbelievable. Just a lot of fun. The atmosphere in here was great. Nice to get the W in front of the fans."
Matthews, the NHL's top goal scorer in two of the last three seasons and NHL Hart Trophy winner in 2022 as league MVP, was modest about the All-Star MVP award, saying, "There might be a slight bias with it being in Toronto."
Elite NHL talent was drafted into four squads by team captains McDavid of Edmonton, Matthews, Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon and Vancouver's Quinn Hughes.
Teams played 3-on-3 plus goaltenders over two 10-minute periods in the final and the semi-finals, which each anded in shootouts.
The final was deadlocked 3-3 at half-time with Clayton Keller, Mitch Marner and Matthews each scoring to give Team Matthews leads only for Team McDavid to equalize each time on goals from Boone Jenner, David Pastrnak and Leon Draisaitl.
Filip Forsberg lifted Team Matthews ahead 66 seconds into the second half and Matthews netted his second goal of the final with 5:03 to play for a 5-3 advantage.
Alex DeBrincat padded the Team Matthews lead with 1:51 remaining. Tomas Hertl answered for Team McDavid but Mathew Barzal added a Team Matthews goal to create the final margin.
"I liked the picks," Matthews said. "A lot of guys I was familiar with, some friends I played with in the past, so it was cool to get some guys back together."
Team McDavid beat Team MacKinnon 4-3 to capture the first semi-final thanks to late heroics from three-time NHL MVP McDavid, who won the $1 million All-Star Skills competition, and David Pastrnak.
Team MacKinnon led 3-1 in the dying seconds but five-time NHL scoring champion McDavid set up Pastrnak's goal with 32 seconds remaining then took a pass from Pastrnak and scored with six seconds remaining to force a shootout.
McDavid scored on the first shot of the extra session and Pastrnak netted the clincher on the final shot to give McDavid's squad 2-0 win and the overall victory.
In the second semi-final, DeBrincat scored twice in regulation and added the only goal in the shootout to give Team Matthews a 6-5 victory over Team Hughes.
S. Sokolow--BTZ
