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Twenty-three years after Fox’s glowing puck made its debut Youth John Tavares Jersey , the NHL’s next big technological advancement will be on display this weekend during All-Star festivities.NBC will showcase puck and player tracking as part of its broadcast of the skills competition Friday night and then as the centerpiece of a digital-only broadcast of the All-Star 3-on-3 tournament Saturday night. It’ll be the first chance for American hockey fans to get an up-close look at the system that could be in place as soon as next season.With each player and puck fitted with a microchip, the amount of available information could be overwhelming. Look for everything from bubbles over players’ heads to skating and shot speed to ice time and even a small trail behind the puck as NBC takes tracking technology in hockey for a test drive.“Eventually it’ll go to possession time and more advanced (data), but right now it’s mainly focused on speed, shift time, distance traveled, mph on the shot and virtually connecting players on a goal,” NBC Sports producer Steve Greenberg said. “We’re scratching the surface here, and what we’re able to display this weekend is not what we’re going to be able to display next year and in the future, but it’s going to be able to be a really good first look at what these chips are going to be able to give us.”The NHL privately tested puck and player tracking in two regular-season games in Las Vegas earlier this month, but this will be the first time the data is available for public consumption. While other types of tracking technology were tested at previous All-Star games and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, this is something of a dry run for the radio frequency system the NHL has been working with developers to perfect.Much like the glowing puck was criticized by purists, there’s the danger of overloading fans with too much Authentic Mitchell Marner Jersey , too fast. NBC will experiment with how much puck and player tracking data can and should fit onto a TV broadcast.“It’s a balancing act,” NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said. “Think about years ago when the yellow line came in for the first down in football. It’s now universal. There are going to be elements that’ll become universal in hockey telecasts based on what we learn over the next period of time.”Kenny Albert, who will call the puck and player tracking-heavy telecast available on NBC Sports’ app and online, likens this to the kind of ball-tracking technology that has become ubiquitous in golf coverage. He was with Fox in the 1990s when the glowing puck was perhaps ahead of its time but thinks fans are ready for puck and player tracking on TV.“We live in an age of information overload and people want stuff like ice time and the mph on a shot for example or how fast a player’s skating,” Albert said. “I have two teenage daughters and I don’t think anybody in that generation now just sits there and watches TV. They want information, whether it’s looking at their phone, their iPad, their computer, and there’s so much information out there.”Eventually, once the NHL implements player and puck tracking, fans will be able to take a deep dive into all the numbers and there will be an element of real-time sports gambling. But Commissioner Gary Bettman and other league executives have pointed out that the first goal was always to make it TV-ready.“The most obvious thing that (viewers will) probably notice is just sort of the correlations tied to speed,” NHL senior vice president of business development David Lehanski said. “It’s kind of the thing everybody talks about: how fast the game is Morgan Rielly Jersey , how fast the players are, how fast the puck moves.”KARLSSON CONUNDRUMSharks defenseman Erik Karlsson missed the final three games before the break with a lower-body injury, but there’s somehow still a chance he takes part in All-Star Weekend in San Jose. Obviously, coach Peter DeBoer said, the organization would love to have Karlsson on the ice in its home arena, but not at the risk of making it worse.“If there’s more damage to be done, no one in their right mind would play,” DeBoer said. “So I think it’s pretty simple.”Karlsson returned to California for tests, and defenseman Brenden Dillon said it’s a positive for the team to play it safe with the two-time Norris Trophy winner. Karlsson has fit in well with San Jose after an offseason trade from San Jose and gives the Sharks the look of a Stanley Cup contender with the deepest blue line in the league.“He’s an unbelievable talent and a guy that’s fit in our locker room great too,” Dillon said. “It’s something where collectively as a group we realized that it was going to be a little bit less whether that’s in minutes or situations … I think for everybody it’s kind of been a little bit less is more and understanding the kind of common goal. So far, so good.”SINKING CAPSThe defending champion Washington Capitals have lost six in a row for the first time since the disastrous 2013-14 season that led to the firing of general manager George McPhee and coach Adam Oates. After players-only meetings didn’t solve the problem, the latest gut punch was allowing a goal with 1 second left to cough up a two-goal Womens Nazem Kadri Jersey , third-period lead to the Sharks on Tuesday in what turned into an overtime loss.“I think it doesn’t matter how many meetings we have,” captain Alex Ovechkin said after his hat trick against San Jose wasn’t enough. “It’s all about us and we know how to play hockey. We know when we play the right way we’re going to get success.”GAME OF THE WEEKThe Buffalo Sabres get an early test in the second half of the season when they visit the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday in each team’s first game after the All-Star break.LEADERS (through Tuesday)Goals: Ovechkin, 36; Assists: Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay), 56; Points: Kucherov, 78; Ice time: Drew Doughty (Los Angeles), 26:41; Wins: Marc-Andre Fleury (Vegas), 27; Goals-against average: Robin Lehner (N.Y. Islanders), 2.02; Save percentage: Lehner, .931. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — It is only fitting that Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon are serving as captains for this weekend’s NHL All-Star game.The three high-scoring forwards are 23 or younger. They are part of a youth movement that is taking over the NHL and will be on center stage when the league’s best players gather at the Shark Tank for their annual midseason celebration.“It’s a young man’s league,” said Chicago forward Patrick Kane Nikita Zaitsev Jersey Kids , now an elder statesman at age 30. “These guys come in and maybe in the past your prime was 26, 27 or 28. Now your prime is maybe 22, 23 or 24. It’s definitely become a younger man’s game. A lot of teams these days are expecting their young draft picks and younger kids to come in and help the team right away. You’ll see more of these young guys get a chance.”Scoring is on pace for its highest mark in more than two decades heading into the All-Star break, thanks in large part to some skilled youngsters who will be on display this weekend like the three All-Star captains along with the league’s leading scorer, 25-year-old Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay, and 25-year-old Calgary star Johnny Gaudreau.None of the league’s top six scorers heading into the break has turned 26 and there are more All-Star skaters this weekend 22 and younger (11) than in their 30s (8). In all, 58 percent of the goals in the NHL this season have been scored by players 26 or younger.“That’s just the way the game is trending,” Matthews said. “It seems a lot younger now, a lot faster, more speed and more skill. A lot of younger guys are coming in and making an impact immediately. That wasn’t the case in years past but it’s kind of changing now. It’s pretty fun to see.”The league had long been looking to increase scoring by reducing the size of goalie pads, among other rules changes, and it seems to have finally materialized. Teams head into the break averaging 3.03 goals per game http://www.mapleleafsshoponline.com/authentic-patrick-marleau-jersey , which is on pace for the highest-scoring season since the 3.14 in 1995-96, when Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky were still among the league’s biggest stars.There’s still a long way to go to get back to the level of the go-go 1980s, which featured a single-season team average of 4.01 goals per game in 1981-82 — the highest in the league since the end of World War II.But there has been an 18 percent increase in scoring since the post-expansion low of 2.57 goals per game for teams in 2003-04, before a lockout canceled the following season and led to rule changes.“The game’s being run by the twentysomethings now,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Players have a positive arrogance when they come into the league that they can do anything and they try it. That’s what makes them so good. They’re not sitting there saying this might not be the right thing to do in this situation. Players are trying it and that’s why you’re seeing what you’re seeing with the skill level in this game. These players are so good.”There was a big jump in the first year back in 2005-06 thanks to a crackdown on stick work and obstruction that led to more power plays. But scoring fell gradually in the ensuing years and was down to 2.67 three years ago before starting to rise again.An influx of young stars like McDavid, Matthews, Mathew Barzal of the New York Islanders and Vancouver rookie Elias Pettersson helped contribute to the 13 percent jump in scoring in a three-year span.“I came in the league out of college and I was 22 or 23 and I was the youngest guy on the team,” Columbus 29-year-old forward Cam Atkinson said. “Now it’s unheard of if you don’t have two or three guys under the age of 20. It’s great for the sport. It’s a fast game and that’s what the fans want.”The surge hasn’t been limited to the youngsters. Washington’s Alex Ovechkin leads the NHL in goals with 37 at age 33 and was slated to be the fourth captain this weekend before deciding to stay home and rest.Hometown favorites Brent Burns and Joe Pavelski of the San Jose Sharks are also among the players posting big numbers this season. Burns leads all defensemen with 55 points, and Pavelski is tied for ninth with 27 goals, putting him on pace for a career-high 42 at age 34.