The first event of the 2015 All Star Weekend goes tonight, with the All Star Fantasy Draft. This is a fairly new addition to the weekend, and has become quote popular among the fans. Rather than split the All-Stars into Eastern Conference and Western Conference, or North America versus the World as in the past, the fantasy draft sees two captains-Nick Foligno and Jonathan Toews– drafting their teams from the pool of All Stars.
The draft will be held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center at 8:00pm ET tonight.
You can catch the draft on NBSCN in the US, and on Sportsnet and TVA in Canada. You can watch a live stream on NBC Live Extra
Foligno will be joined by assistant captains Patrick Kane and Drew Doughty, while Toews will have Rick Nash and Ryan Getzlaf helping him select his squad.
A puck will be flipped to determine who picks first, with 18 rounds of selection. To make sure teams don’t stock up at a position, for example loading up on snipers, each team has to select their three goalies by the end of the tenth round, and their six defensemen by the end of the fifteenth round.
The six rookies taking part in the event will be split into two groups of three. After round eleven another puck will be flipped to determine which Captain gets to make his choice of rookies.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the night is that each team is allowed one trade. I sure hope the Captains take advantage of this, it’ll sure make things interesting!