All-Star - Hockey Wiretap

The NHL All-Star Weekend will have an international hockey flavor after the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off and the Winter Olympics.

The 2027 midseason classic, scheduled for Feb. 5-6 at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, will feature teams representing Canada, Finland, Sweden, the United States and a "World" team comprising international players from countries outside of those four.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed that Russian players will be permitted on the World team, despite an uncertain status for other international hockey events.

The NHL has canceled an Olympic sendoff event scheduled for February at the New York Islanders' arena and plan to hold All-Star Weekend festivities there in 2027, ESPN's Emily Kaplan reported Tuesday night.

UBS Arena was announced to host 2026 All-Star Weekend when the league figured it would experiment with the event as a jumping off point for players, coaches and staff to gather there and fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport to Milan.

The NHL is planning an international event at UBS Arena next February in lieu of the previously announced All-Star Weekend at the home of the New York Islanders, a source confirmed to ESPN on Monday.

The NHL has not announced its plans for the weekend before the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

"It's going to be a spectacular international event," a league source told ESPN's Emily Kaplan.

The NHL is teasing a potential new era for its annual all-star showcase.

Following the runaway success of last month's 4 Nations Face-Off, which replaced the NHL's traditional All-Star Game, the league is prepared to roll out something entirely different again in February 2026 when the New York Islanders host the sport's top skaters at UBS Arena.

"We're reevaluating how we want to do things, because I think we've raised the bar about as high as you can for an all-star game in any sport," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Wednesday, speaking on the final day of the league's annual general manager meetings. "And so we want to make sure whatever we do is up to the standards that we've created."

The New York Islanders will host All-Star Weekend in 2026, the NHL announced Sunday.

The news was announced during the first intermission of the Islanders' 6-5 overime loss in their Stadium Series game against the New York Rangers at MetLife Stadium. It was second game of the Series, after the New Jersey Devils defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3 on Saturday night.

Playing in his home arena, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews stole the show during Saturday's NHL All-Star Game tournament, authoring an MVP performance and capping off a revamped weekend of festivities at the league's annual showcase.

Team Matthews eliminated Team McDavid with a 7-4 victory in the 3-on-3 finale, sending the fans, many donning Matthews jerseys, home happy from Scotiabank Arena

Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid won the $1 million NHL All-Star skills competition Friday night, an event he helped the league redesign this season.

McDavid helped the NHL revamp the skills competition with a back-to-basics approach. The field of players was limited to 12 stars in an effort to build more competition for a $1 million prize. The NHL also jettisoned its pretaped events and judged trick-shot competition in an effort to reorient it back to pure hockey skill.

Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov went No. 1 overall when the NHL staged its first player draft in nearly a decade Thursday night to kick off All-Star Weekend.

The league convened four teams -- made up of one captain, co-captain and celebrity captain -- to select from the remaining pool of 44 selected All-Star players that will make up groupings for Saturday's three-on-three All-Star Game.

The NHL is hopeful that New Jersey Devils star Jack Hughes can still participate in the NHL All-Star Game and skills competition this weekend in Toronto.

Hughes, 22, hasn't played since suffering an undisclosed upper-body injury in the Devils' Jan. 5 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Devils coach Lindy Ruff indicated that Hughes hadn't returned to skate with the team before the All-Star break.

The NHL revealed some famous names set to captain its All-Star Game weekend festivities in Toronto next month, from the players themselves to some well-known personas.

Saturday night's announcement unveiled members of all four teams, each with an NHL player captain, co-captain, celebrity captain and designated jersey color, that will draft from the pool of previously selected All-Stars on Feb. 1. Those groupings will then last throughout the skills competition on Feb. 2 and play together during the All-Star Game on Feb. 3.