Skills Competition a Thrill for Holan : Hockey: Defenseman has hardest shot on the team and wins shooting accuracy contest.

Paul Kariya figures to be the Mighty Ducks’ representative to the NHL All-Star game in January, but defenseman Milos Holan was the star of the team’s skills competition Saturday at The Pond.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that Holan won the hardest shot competition with a 94.5-m.p.h. slap shot, but he also won the shooting accuracy contest, needing only only five shots to break four targets placed in the corners of the net.

“I had a really good time and I tried to do my best in every competition,” said Holan, who joked that the key to his success was that, “I didn’t eat breakfast.”

Holan has been a healthy scratch the past three games but has played three times since announcing Oct. 22 he has a slow-progressing form of leukemia and is awaiting a marrow transplant. He thought his performance Saturday might do something to convince any doubters among the crowd of 3,590 that he is fit and able to play, as his doctors say.

“That’s right,” Holan said. “I’m just waiting to play. They won [three] games, and that’s the rules in hockey. You don’t have to make any changes.”

Coach Ron Wilson said it will probably take illness, injury or a poor performance by one of the defensemen in the lineup for Holan to get his next chance.

“He struggled at times when he’s been in,” Wilson said. “He just has to bide his time and work hard in practice. His conditioning is fine. His attitude’s excellent, although I’m sure he’s frustrated at not playing, like anyone else.”

The other key skills competition was won by defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky, who took the title of fastest skater with a 14.223-second lap. Kariya sat out that race to avoid aggravating a sore groin.

The top four players from each conference in the fastest skater and hardest shot contests advance to the skills competition at the All-Star game, but the marks by Holan and Tverdovsky probably won’t rank that high when all the statistics are in.

The early leader among the hardest-shooting players is Detroit’s Stu Grimson, a former Duck who is known for having a cannon of a shot--measured at 96.3 m.p.h.--but frighteningly little control. Detroit’s Sergei Fedorov, a two-time winner of the fastest-skater contest at the All-Star game, has the best mark so far at 13.504 seconds.