Vancouver’s Brock Boeser was more than happy to just be at the NHL All-Star game, mingling with some of the high-profile players he grew up admiring.
Leaving Amalie Arena on Sunday as the first rookie to take Most Valuable Player honors since Mario Lemieux in 1985 far exceeded anything he imagined possible.
“Shocked,” the 20-year-old Canucks star said, describing his reaction. “I never would have dreamed this any time in life.”
Photo: AFP
Rickard Rakell had two goals, while Boeser, Johnny Gaudreau and Drew Doughty also scored to help the Pacific Division beat the Atlantic Division 5-2 in the championship game of the four-team divisional tournament played in an entertaining three-on-three format adopted for the All-Star game in 2016.
The NHL’s leading rookie scorer with 24 goals and 19 assists for the Canucks also had an assist in the final after scoring to put his team ahead for good in the Pacific’s 5-2 semi-final victory over the Central Division.
“I was definitely nervous coming into it,” said Boeser, the only rookie among 15 first-time All-Stars. “[I said] enjoy this, just have fun, smile. That’s what I did.”
Goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Mike Smith teamed to allow just four goals in the two games the Pacific won to claim the US$1 million winner-take-all prize.
Mike Green had two goals for the Atlantic Division, one off both Fleury and Smith in the final.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov had three goals in the Atlantic Division’s 7-4 semi-final win over the Metropolitan Division, but the Lightning’s young star was shut out in the championship game.
“After we saw that we won the first game, we said we needed to tighten up a little bit and play a little harder there for the cash,” Gaudreau said.
“We made sure we were ready to go [because] now there’s something to play for in the finals,” said Smith, who stopped six of seven shots in the second half. “Our guys did a good job to up the tempo.”
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