FHN TODAY: Changes Coming to Florida Panthers All-Star Weekend

The Florida Panthers will be playing host to their second All-Star Weekend in a few weeks and per ESPN.com, there will be changes to how players are selected.

As some of you know, the NHL All-Star format the past few years has been a four-team tournament with each division in the league represented.

All 32 teams in the league will have at least one representative with the NHL Hockey Operations Department naming the first 32 players — including four goalies — and those will be named during tonight’s ESPN coverage of the Capitals-Blue Jackets game.

Per Emily Kaplan, the NHL had fans vote for the four divisional team captains with the NHL selecting the remaining players — aside from the final four players whom fans voted on.

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Now, fans will vote on the remainder of the team aside from the 32 players announced tonight.

So, that means two skaters and a goalie for each divisional team will be picked by fans either through an online vote or using Twitter.

The league will “combine the traditional online vote with data it collects from Twitter. Every time a person tweets a player’s name or handle with the #NHLAllStarVote it will be counted, as will retweets, replies or quote tweets.”

According to ESPN, The 12 players voted in will be announced Jan. 19.

The All-Star coaches — Florida was represented in the divisional format by Gerard Gallant at Nashville in 2016 and Andrew Brunette last year in Vegas — will be named on on Jan. 11.

The Panthers will host All-Star events throughout Broward County — with the Skills Challenge and game (mostly) held at FLA Live Arena on Feb. 3-4.

FLORIDA HOCKEY NOW

Florida Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour takes great pride in his Indigenous heritage — and is working to help grow the game within that community.

A real nice story from Colby D. Guy this morning on FHN.

— Matthew Tkachuk had a terrific game Tuesday night as the Panthers beat the Coyotes.

Matthew got his first hat trick with the Panthers, but says he can get his game to another level.

— The Panthers had Wednesday off — they are back on the ice today before flying to Detroit — but we still have plenty of video up on the FHN YouTube Channel.

Click  RIGHT HERE to see everything all in one place.

Tuesday night postgame fromPaul Maurice, Tkachuk, Marc Staal, Spencer Knight as well as pregame from Sam Reinhart and Eetu Luostarinen.

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NATIONAL HOCKEY NOW

The Detroit Red Wings took a pair of tripping penalties in the second period and paid for it as New Jersey got a couple of goals and rolled to a 5-1 win at Little Caesars.

— Jakub Vrana and his big cap hit went unclaimed on waivers and the Wings assigned the forward to Grand Rapids.

— Some thought the Washington Capitals would have interest in Vrana but they did not claim him on Wednesday either.

— The Pittsburgh Penguins sent goalie Tristan Jarry back home for evaluation as the team went through a listless practice in Vegas.

They blamed their malaise on ‘travel.’

— Jake DeBrusk was the hero for the Boston Bruins at Fenway but is not on their three-game road trip.

— The Calgary Flames are angry after another frustrating loss.

PANTHERS ON DECK

FLORIDA PANTHERS AT DETROIT RED WINGS 

• When: Friday, 7 p.m.
• Where: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit 
• Streaming/TV: Bally Sports Florida/ESPN+
• Radio: WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
• Last season: Florida won 4-0
• This season (Florida leads 1-0): Panthers 5, Detroit 1 (Dec. 8)
• All-time regular season series: Florida leads 34-19-6, 5 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Sunday at Dallas, 3:30 p.m.