All-Star blog: Cam Talbot

Los Angeles Kings goalie Cam Talbot will be keeping a blog throughout the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend. In his second entry, he writes about the NHL All-Star Skills presented by DraftKings Sportsbook at Scotiabank Arena on Friday, his thoughts on taking part in the Honda/Hyundai One-on-One event, where he was chosen first to go against William Nylander of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the thrill of sharing it with his 7-year-old twins, Landon and Sloane.

Tonight was unbelievable. I mean, that's what it's all about -- to be in the building and to be where I get to watch the Skills. I was on the bench for the first five or six events with my kids and they get to be a part of all this, which is just something extremely special, something that I'll never take for granted and will always look back on, this as a highlight of my career. It's an extremely special night, a ton of fun and it's fun to watch. They put on a good show tonight. We watched the first few events from out there on the bench with the kids, which was great. And then they came back with us in the locker room while I got dressed. Then they went back onto the bench when I was in the shootout event.

It was amazing to be so close, to see it up close. I don't know, to be honest, how those guys do it, and you see it every single night and you see it in the game. You don't have to put them in a skills competition. We already know how extremely talented these guys are. I didn't get to see the relay event because we had to come into the dressing room to get changed, but it looked like a cool event from what they showed us before. Obviously, it's just a fun event overall from start to finish to watch, no matter what.

When it got to the shootout, we had been sitting around for so long as it was, I was happy to get picked first and get it out of the way. I wasn't happy it was ‘Willy’ coming down on me because he's an extremely crafty player and he's got a ton of moves in his bag. I was trying to stay as patient as possible, but obviously he found some holes out there, but that's what good players do.

You know, you try to do as much as you can just to stay loose, but at the same time, you're not doing your normal warmup routines. You don't get your full warmup to go in there for a minute. So for me, it was just almost trying not to get hurt, but having a lot of fun and just making this as tough on Nylander as possible. It was a long time, that minute. I came off exhausted and was like ‘Man, that lasted a long time’. Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, who hadn’t even gone yet, said it was the longest minute ever. I think everyone kind of was watching the clock. It felt a lot longer than 60 seconds. It was hard for the skaters too; they were flying out there. I think that’s really when you realize how quick you had to go.

The hometown fans were going to cheer extra loud for the [Maple] Leafs’ guys and I knew that, so it didn’t really affect me at the time. I was just going out there to try to make a few saves.

But the kids are having a great time and they have all weekend. They are getting all decked out with clothes and meeting everyone. My wife, Kelly, goes all out with all these outfits and stuff. My daughter's little skirt, their sweaters, their shoes, and they have custom jackets and stuff like that too. Everything on them is custom made and my wife finds people on Instagram and Etsy all over the place to bring in this stuff. She goes all out. They’ll have a brand new set of outfits for tomorrow. Save the best for last, right? We’ll see tomorrow.