COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Four years ago, in Raleigh, North Carolina, St. Louis Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk's All-Star Game experience lasted about a minute and involved stickhandling through small obstacles on the ice.
On Friday night, it was perhaps a measure of a young man's maturity and his growing place in the game that he was asked to do more and, perhaps more to the point, found himself reveling in the experience.
"I think tonight you just felt like you just had more, I don't want to say 'responsibility,' but you just had more to bring to the table, I guess," Shattenkirk told ESPN.com after his Team Foligno squad rolled to victory over Team Toews in the annual skills festival. "You see your name in a couple of different events, and I think that was special."
The U.S. Olympian was tabbed by team captain Nick Foligno to take part in a breakaway competition and a puck-handling drill around a series of obstacles. What made the breakaway memorable was a chance to face off against former teammate Jaroslav Halak, even if the results weren't exactly as Shattenkirk would have liked.
"I remember when I saw that I was shooting against Jaro, I was automatically thinking, 'Oh, he knows all my moves from his St. Louis Blues days, so now I've got to figure out what to do against him,'" he said. "0-for-2. I'm not happy about it. The first one, I think I had him, I just missed my shot, and the second one he threw a poke check at me, which I didn't think was allowed in these kind of things. It was fun, but he's someone, again, you get to come back and connect with all these guys. I think when we skated out there and we all kind of were sitting around watching all the stuff go along, I think we were all just kind of enjoying the whole thing."
On the stickhandling competition, Shattenkirk admitted there were some nerves, though seeing his competition, the Calgary Flames' Johnny Gaudreau, struggle did lessen some of that pressure.
"The most comforting thing was to see Johnny Gaudreau lose the puck, knowing you have to go next," he said. "I think Drew Doughty and I kind of turned to each other, and he said, 'You know what? It might be better to just go a little bit slower and make sure you don't lose the puck. It might be a little more embarrassing, but ...'
"I tell you what, sitting around for a little while and then going and doing that was a little tough. I was pretty stiff and sweating pretty hard after."
Shattenkirk's squad ended up winning the skills competition quite handily, even if the scoring system is a bit arcane.
"Luckily, we had the board to kind of check and see what the score was," Shattenkirk said. "We jumped out to an early lead, and it seemed like guys forgot about it a little bit, and the next thing we knew, we came in for the first break, and it was 10-to-1 ... . I think we kind of knew that we just had to do our part and make sure that we were solid the rest of the way to win it."
Although the players did return to the dressing rooms briefly while the ice surface was being set up for the next competition, Shattenkirk and most of the players remained on the ice for most of the 90-minute event.
"During the breaks, we came in when they did the ice cuts and all that kind of stuff, but for the rest of it, I was out there kind of seeing everything," Shattenkirk said. "I saw every single event and every single player go. It was cool to be kind of sitting on the ice and look around and watch everyone, hear the cheers and hear the boos. It was a good time."
Does he have a lasting memory? Well, watching his teammates Vladimir Tarasenko and netminder Brian Elliott, who cut his vacation to the Turks and Caicos Islands short to join the All Star brigade, enjoying laughs during the creative breakaway competition stands out. Elliott took a selfie with his phone, while Tarasenko scored on his first attempt and then put on a blindfold for another shot and held a target in his glove for the third attempt.
"Two teammates having a blast," Shattenkirk said. "I was going to be more of a part of it, but it didn't work out. But they had some creative things going on. Maybe even seeing him stumble a little bit on the fastest skater, seeing Vladdy stumble was a kind of funny."
Something to tuck away for future ribbing.
"Exactly, exactly," he said.