Simmonds, not McDavid, gets storybook ending in NHL all-star game
LOS ANGELES — Connor McDavid didn’t get the storybook ending in his first NHL all-star game but Wayne Simmonds certainly did.
Simmonds scored the winning goal and was named MVP in the final of the all-star tournament, leading the Metropolitan division all-stars over the McDavid-led pack from the Pacific. The 28-year-old Simmonds was making his first all-star game appearance in the same Staples Center building where he once played regularly for the Los Angeles Kings.
Simmonds was drafted in the second round by the Kings in 2007 and played 240 regular season games with the club before being shipped to the Philadelphia Flyers in the Mike Richards trade of June 2011.
“It’s all pretty surreal,” Simmonds said after the 4-3 victory. “I don’t even know if I realize what’s going on right now.”