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Pavel Bure of Vancouver Canucks makes NHL's Top 100, Bo Horvat the All-Star
January 29, 2017, 2:40 PM ET [173 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
Who would have thought that one of the most iconic images of Saturday's All-Star Skills Competition would have been Bo Horvat embracing the goalie that shut out his team two days earlier, Mike Smith of the Arizona Coyotes?




That's what happened during the new Four-Line Challenge competition. Bo got two opportunities to try to hit a tiny opening in the net from the far goal line. He missed significantly on his first shot so he let Smith take the second—and the goalie known as one of the NHL's best puck-handlers drained it!




The only other event participants to successfully put the puck in the hole were Brent Burns and Wayne Simmonds, both from centre ice. Smith was awarded a whopping 20 points for his goal, which easily gave the Pacific the win in the event.

Click here to check out all the results from the Skills Competition.

Horvat also participated in the fastest skater competition, where he was initially awarded the win in his heat against Patrik Laine, but saw the decision reversed because he used a thrust of his stick to break the plane first, which is not allowed.

In the shootout competition, Horvat and the rest of his Pacific Division compatriots were all denied by the goaltending duo of Carey Price and Tuukka Rask. The only puck to get past Price came off the stick of Ryan Kesler's six-year-old son Ryker.




Sidney Crosby, participating in his first Skills Competition since 2007, won the accuracy-shooting contest with a time of 10.73 seconds—well behind Daniel Sedin's all-time record.




Another one of the day's amazing photos actually came from the afternoon's celebrity charity game. Justin Bieber, meet Chris Pronger:




If you want to catch up on the rest of Horvat's impressions from the All-Star Game, he has posted a couple of good blogs at Canucks.com:




Unfortuantely, it appears that not all All-Stars are created equal in the eyes of the NHL's merchandising team.




To add insult to injury...




On a more positive note, Ben Kuzma put together a terrific profile on Horvat and his also-athletically-accomplished girlfriend Holly for The Province.




Horvat and the rest of his Pacific Division teammates will face off against the Central Division in Game 1 of today's 3-on-3 competition, scheduled to kick off at 12:30 p.m. on CBC, Sportsnet and NBC. The Atlantic and Metropolitan Divisions will square off at 1:30, then the two winning teams will meet to determine which group takes home the $1 million prize.

I miss John Scott already—he was the engine that fuelled the Pacific Division win last year. But the 3-on-3 format was definitely a winner, so we'll see who brings the thrills this time around.

On Friday night, the NHL stirred up plenty of conversation when it named its 100 greatest players of all time—part of the celebration to commemorate the league's 100th anniversary.

I was happy to see that they didn't try to rank the players in any kind of order. It's hard enough to narrow 100 years down to only 100 guys when there are 267 male players in the Hockey Hall of Fame—and that number doesn't include current or recently-retired players.

Still, nice to see one Vancouver Canucks draft pick make the list. Pavel Bure earned his two Rocket Richard trophies as a member of the Florida Panthers but he played 428 of his 702 NHL games and scored 254 of his 437 goals as a Canuck.

Here's a highlight package to remind you of the thrills Bure generated when he took to the ice.



Two other short-term Canucks also made the list: Mark Messier and Mats Sundin.

After today's NHL All-Star festivities wrap up, stay on Sportsnet for the AHL's All-Star Skills Competition, live from Allentown, PA. Canucks prospects Jordan Subban and Alex Grenier will be participating.


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