The NHL is taking cues from the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off and Winter Olympics tournaments, introducing an international format to next year’s All-Star Game.
The 2027 All-Star Game will feature players divided into five teams representing Canada, the United States, Sweden, Finland and “World,” which will feature players from all other nations.
Those sides will play a round-robin tournament of 3-on-3 hockey with five-minute games. After all 10 games, the teams with the best records will play a 10-minute final and the winners will earn $2 million.
All-Star Weekend will be held at the New York Islanders’ UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., which was supposed to host the event in 2026 before it was altered and ultimately scrapped in favor of a break purely for the Winter Olympics.
“We’re extremely excited to bring this event to New York,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday in Raleigh, N.C., in his annual State of the League address. “We think the format we’ve created will be fun. It’ll be entertaining. It’ll be great for the players and the fans.”
The U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland fielded teams in the first-ever 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025, which was seen as a success and gave hockey fans a taste of international competition a year before NHL players returned to the Olympics.
The league is following the NBA in trying to introduce an international flair to the All-Star proceedings. For the first time in February, two teams of American players and one made up of international players played a round robin in place of the NBA’s traditional All-Star Game.
However, Bettman didn’t indicate that the NHL drew inspiration from basketball, saying, “We haven’t had some of the issues that some of the other leagues have had.
“Yes, we even blew ourselves up with 4 Nations by taking it to a whole new level, but there was never anything wrong with the All-Star format that we’ve been using for the last few years. And we think what we’ve laid out to you today is going to be fun and entertaining, and that’s really what it’s all about.”
The league is also changing up the All-Star Skills Competition in an effort to put younger players in the spotlight.
Ten players 25 years old or younger will be selected to compete across multiple events. They will be required to compete in four of the following: Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Passing Challenge, One Timers, Stick Handling and Accuracy Shooting. Based on the points they earn for their performances, the top four players will head to a shootout against one of four All-Star goalies.
The top two players in the shootout then finish with a head-to-head race in the Obstacle Course. The Skills Competition winner will take home $1 million.
–Field Level Media
