The Metropolitan Division was crowned as 2019 NHL All-Star Game champs on Saturday in San Jose. Sidney Crosby & Co. topped the Atlantic Division with a 7-4 win in the semifinal, then smoked the Central Division with a 10-5 victory in the final to take home the title.

Crosby scored four goals for the Metro and took home All-Star MVP honors in addition to his share of the $1 million cash prize awarded to the winning team. (Each player on the Metro will earn about $90,000.) He also did his best to remind some people that his biggest rival, Alex Ovechkin, was nowhere to be found.

As to be expected, the All-Star Game was more of a circus and a spectacle than it was a traditional hockey game, but the 3-on-3 format has delivered some exciting, wide-open action over the past few years and this year was no different. Plus, the loose atmosphere surrounding the mostly meaningless exhibition game always tends to bring some fun, goofy moments that serve as a change of pace from the intensity of the regular season and playoffs. 

Here are a handful of takeaways from the 2019 contest.

The music was ... not great

It's important to cut musical artists some slack when it comes to performing at sporting events. It's not their usual performance setting and the comfort level and acoustic environment often aren't where they should be. It's also important to remember that nobody should ever expect the NHL to enlist good musical acts. 

But Saturday's entertainment was somehow significantly worse than what any of us expected or deserved. Lauren Jauregui performed the national anthem and provided a reminder why Camila Cabello decided she'd be better off leaving Fifth Harmony.

At least anyone who bet the over was happy? (If that's actually a thing at the NHL All-Star Game.)

Things didn't get much better for the intermission entertainment, as Bebe Rexha did this. 

Hockey is often propped up as the ultimate team sport in which people selflessly work toward a common good. Apparently this year's musical team felt like the common good was "making Kid Rock seem palatable."

New tech was everywhere

A lot of this year's All-Star Weekend was about the NHL showing off new technology -- including some player and puck tracking tech that will make its way into the league full-time starting next year. One of the features used on the broadcast Saturday was a puck trail similar to that of the old FOX glow puck. 

The L.A. Kings used a version of the glow puck for their '90s-themed broadcast earlier this year, but only on replays. However, NBC utilized the new one during live action for the All-Star Game, and you can check out a clip below.

Personally, I didn't find it as distracting as the previous version, but I still feel like it's a feature that's probably best saved for replays or as an optional live feature that you can toggle on or off. I was more bothered by the intrusive player indicator graphics that popped up randomly on the broadcast.

There were a number of other data trackers -- things such as shift timers and speed indicators -- that popped up randomly during the broadcast as well. Again, those things seem more useful (and less distracting) for replay usage than during a live shot but the NHL has plenty of time to figure out before the start of next season. Let's hope they were just a little too eager to show off their new toys for this exhibition game.

John Gibson had the over

If there was any single player who needed (and deserved) a rest this weekend, it's John Gibson -- the league's best goalie during the first half despite playing for one of the worst teams. Gibson got the start in net for the Pacific on Saturday night but it looked like he was still intent on getting that rest.

The Central piled up seven goals on Gibson, who stopped two of nine shots for a hilarious .222 save percentage. It wasn't entirely his fault considering how lazily the Pacific played -- we all know nobody really tries during these things -- but you'd think he'd be better at playing with almost no help considering he does it on a nightly basis for Anaheim these days.

In any case, congratulations to Gibson for the night off ... and for the fact that All-Star stats don't count.

Highlights of the night

Lightning forward Steven Stamkos scored the best goal of the night when he went through his legs. It looked like this:

But Marc-Andre Fleury had the best goal allowed on Saturday. It looked like this:

The All-Star Game is undeniably a joke but it's also hilarious, dumb fun.

The competition wasn't great

There may have been some highlights, but there wasn't much drama. Two of the three 20-minute contests -- Central vs. Pacific semifinal and Metro vs. Central final -- were pretty much blowouts right out of the gate. The true intensity and competitiveness of hockey is always going to be absent in an All-Star Game, but sometimes guys find themselves in a tight contest coming down to the wire and their competitive instincts kick in a bit. Not this year. The scoring was high but it was a relatively unspectacular contest in terms of quality of play and in-game storylines. 

Honestly, that's fine. We'll live to see another regular-season game.