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Hertl in Toronto; San Jose hosts AHL All-Stars

Posted on by Erika Towne

This will be a busy weekend for the Sharks organization, filled with All-Star festivities. Tomas Hertl will represent San Jose in Toronto at the NHL All-Star game. Following Wednesday’s game in Anaheim, Hertl and Anaheim’s representative, Frank Vatrano, flew out to Canada together. Even though Hertl has missed the past two games because of an injury, he’s still expected to participate in the All-Star festivities.

The All-Star weekend is a family event, so it was fun to see Hertl walk the red carpet with his wife Aneta and their two kids.

The family also posed for a picture in the All-Star lockerroom sporting the new Cali Fin jerseys.

Sadly, much like the playground in elementary school, the draft was as much about skill as it was about who your buddies were. Maple Leafs drafted Maple Leafs and Canucks drafted Canucks.

Most of the West Coasters were left until the end, including San Jose’s own Tomas Hertl. Turns out NHL players don’t stay up to watch the late games either. Hertl, Vatrano, Seattle’s Oliver Bjorkstrand and the New York Rangers’ Vincent Trochek rounded out the bottom four. Each of them was handed an envelope with their team name so that no one felt completely left out by being the last player picked. Now we’re just group shaming instead. Hertl will play with Team McDavid.

Unlike years past, not all the players played in the All-Star skills competition. There were only 12 players asked to compete. They took part in events like the fastest skater, hardest shot, stickhandling, one-timers, passing and accuracy shooting. Some tried, others, like Nikita Kucherov, just showed up. The scores were added up and eight moved on to go one-on-one with a goalie of their choosing in a shootout. The top six reached the final round with an on-ice obstacle course. Amazingly, Connor McDavid, who helped design the events, won the $1 million prize.

I get that we want to see the best NHL players in the skills competition, but knowing that a player from my team won’t be participating made me super uninterested. I tried to watch, but I already spend enough time listening to announcers drool over Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, the Canucks, the Oilers and the Maple Leafs during the games I want to watch. I don’t need to amplify that noise. I’ll scroll Twitter and see everything that I need to see anyway.

The All-Star game is today at noon PT, 3 p.m. ET.

Bay Area well represented among AHL All-Stars

If there’s one thing to get excited about, it’s that the stars of the future will be taking part in the AHL All-Star game right here in San Jose. The San Jose Barracuda will host the AHL’s best and brightest at Tech CU Arena on Sunday and Monday. It looks like tickets are still available for both days.

The Bay Area will have some representation at the All-Star festivities.

Danil Gushchin was named the San Jose Barracuda’s representative a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, he’s injured and won’t be able to participate. Don’t worry though, the Barracuda will have a representative. Recently, Shakir Mukhamadullin was added to the list.

Meanwhile, Gilroy native and reigning AHL MVP Dustin Wolf will represent the Calgary Wranglers. Wolf played junior hockey in Southern California with the Los Angeles Junior Kings and then joined the WHL. He was drafted in the seventh round of the 2019 draft by the Calgary Flames and made his NHL debut on April 12, 2023 against the San Jose Sharks.

Roy Sommer to be inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame

On Monday, longtime Barracuda head coach Roy Sommer will be inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame. Sommer ran the AHL bench for the Sharks’ affiliates, including the Kentucky Thoroughblades, Cleveland Barons, Worcester Sharks and San Jose Barracuda. He also had a brief stint as an assistant coach behind the Sharks bench when Pete DeBoer was fired in December of 2019.

Sommer joined the San Diego Gulls in 2022-23. In total, Sommer won 828 names at the AHL level and has coached 1,813 games, the most ever by an AHL coach.

Over his career, he helped develop players like Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Timo Meier, Mikka Kiprusoff and Evgeni Nabokov.

He is an Oakland native.

2024 AHL All-Star Game schedule

Festivities start with Fan Fest in the Tech CU parking lot on Sunday. It will include a mechanical shark, face painting and mascot broomball. You can also get autographs from former AHL and Sharks players like Dan Boyle, Jonathan Cheechoo, Scott Hannan and Mark Smith.

If all goes well, the rain will let up just before the skills competition when the AHL All-Stars walk the red carpet. 41 of the players are first-time AHL All-Stars. 14 are former first-round NHL picks and 10 of them are second-round picks. Many of them have already played in the NHL, including Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosen, Dylan Guenther and Brandt Clarke.

The All-Star Skills Competition starts at 5 p.m. PT.

Sommer will be inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame on Monday at 11 a.m. That ceremony happens at the Montgomery Theater (271 S. Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113).

On Monday evening, the AHL All-Stars will be back at Tech CU Arena for the All-Star Challenge. That’s when the players will skate 3-on-3. That starts at 6 p.m. PT.

Both the Skills Competition and the Challenge will air live on the NHL Network. You can watch Sommer and the rest of the AHL Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Ceremony on AHLTV. It will be free for that event. And, you can listen to all three broadcasts live on the Sharks Audio Network.

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