logo
FlamesNation has no direct affiliation to the Calgary Flames, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA
Matvei Gridin gives highlight reel performance at AHL All-Star Skills Competition
alt
Photo credit: Angela Burger/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Feb 11, 2026, 12:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 11, 2026, 00:40 EST
Comments
The AHL All-Star game kicked off in Rockford, IL on Tuesday night. It is a two-day event with the skills competition taking place on the first day and the three-on-three tournament taking place on the second day. Matvei Gridin was the lone representative from Calgary representing the Wranglers in this event. 
The schedule was unveiled on the day of, and it was announced that Gridin would be participating in three out of the seven skills competitions. This included the fastest skater, the pass and score event and breakaway relay. Going into this event, Gridin has 28 points in 34 games with the Wranglers, consisting of 10 goals and 18 assists. He is credited with one power play goal, one shorthanded goal, three game-winning goals and one shootout goal in three attempts. 
Prior to his call-up to the Flames, Gridin was in the top three in the rookie scoring categories. Now, he’s 16th in goals, seventh in assists, and 10th in points. Only one other former Wrangler was in this event. That was Jakob Pelletier representing the Syracuse Crunch.
Gridin was especially looking forward to the fastest skater event and said beforehand:
“I’ll try to do my best in the fastest skater. Hopefully, I win, but we’ll see.”

Fastest Skater

Gridin had a good pace and tried to make that final push to make up a little time and took a tumble towards the end as he clipped the bottom of the boards on the last turn. He ended up finishing with the slowest time out of the six with a 14.485 lap. The East Conference ended up picking up the point with the win in this competition. 

Pass and Score 

In the pass and score event, Matvei Gridin was in a group with Tanner Laczynski of the Henderson Silver Knights and Cameron Hughes of the Texas Stars. They were shooting on Artur Akhtyamov of the Toronto Marlies. They had three chances and each of them needed to touch the puck on each shot attempt. This group had a flawless performance, going three for three in their attempts.

Breakaway Relay 

The final event of the night was the breakaway relay. This was perhaps Matvei’s best performance of the night, with an impressive through-the-legs deke that he finished off with a backhand bar down shot. All the goals in this event counted towards the Conference score. 
Night one finished with the Eastern Conference ahead 18-15. The three-on-three event will be on Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. MT and can be streamed on Flo Hockey or TSN5. 

This article is brought to you by Platinum Mitsubishi

This article is a presentation of Platinum Mitsubishi, family-owned and operated by lifelong Calgarians. Home of the industry-leading 10-year, 160,000-kilometre powertrain warranty. Check out their showroom at 2720 Barlow Trail NE or online at www.mitsu.ca.
The Mitsubishi Motors lineup includes the industry-leading Outlander and Outlander PHEV, as well as the compact Eclipse Cross and RVR models. New for February, take advantage of available 0% financing for up to 84 months on all in-stock 2025 Outlander PHEVs! Check out Platinum’s inventory here.

News

Breaking News