Savard lifts East over West in NHL All-Star game

Alex Ovechkin scored two goals for the Eastern Conference.

(Sunday, January 27th)

Final Score: East 8, West 7

Atlanta, GA  - Marc Savard’s goal with 20.9 seconds left in regulation lifted the Eastern Conference to an 8-7 win over the Western Conference in the 56th All-Star game from Philips Arena.

Eric Staal picked up game MVP honors by contributing two goals and an assist on the game-winner for the Eastern Conference, which won despite giving up a four-goal lead.

“It’s a neat feeling. I’m a little surprised but I’ll take the honor, said Staal. “It was a great game, a lot of fun. In terms of talent on both teams, I’ll take it. The last two or three minutes I was up and down the ice because both teams had good scoring chances, but there was a big goal from Savard there and we’ll take the win.”

Alex Ovechkin notched a pair of scores, and Brian Campbell registered a goal and two assists for the East. Savard and Marian Hossa picked up a goal and a helper each and Andrei Markov also lit the lamp.

Tim Thomas picked up the win despite allowing four goals on 18 shots in the third period.

Rick Nash recorded a hat trick for the Western Conference, which has dropped two of the last three star-studded meetings. Henrik Sedin added two assists, while Dion Phaneuf, Marian Gaborik, Ryan Getzlaf and Scott Niedermayer hit the net once apiece.

Manny Legace took the loss, giving up three goals on only nine shots over the final 20 minutes.

On the deciding tally, Staal gained control of the puck behind the net to the right of Legace, then fed in front to Campbell stationed in the right circle. The Sabres defenseman quickly chipped the puck over to Savard in the high slot for a one-timer that rippled the net between the left post and crossbar.

“I didn’t see it. I was just hoping he’d miss the net,” said Legace. “The pass went behind the net. He passed it over and it was a good shot, over the top corner.”

Although Legace was called to the bench with 18 seconds to go, Thomas only needed to make one pad stop from 30 feet to wrap up the win for the East.

“You don’t want to get booed by the crowd for putting a bad product on the ice,” said Savard, who played in Atlanta from 2002-06. “Guys kept their feet moving, made a lot of nice plays, obviously Nash had some nice breakaway goals. It was a lot of fun. Fans got a pretty good show tonight. Guys worked, worked pretty hard, but we don’t want to get injured in these games then go back to your team. No team would be happy with that.”

Nash put the West ahead only 12 seconds in, surprising Rick DiPietro with a wrister to the glove side, but Staal dented Chris Osgood for the East at 1:20.

After several minutes of relatively uninspired play, Markov tipped home a cross-ice feed from Mike Richards for a 2-1 East edge midway through the period, and Ovechkin stashed home a one-timer from the slot with 6:25 to play for a 3-1 game.

Campbell followed 1:35 later for a three-goal East cushion, then Ovechkin finished off a slick passing play between Jason Spezza and Martin St. Louis to cap the five-goal burst.

Evgeni Nabokov and Tomas Vokoun manned the nets for the second period, and all was quiet until Nash tallied on a nifty breakaway just prior to the midway point. Vokoun then stoned Gaborik a minute later by doing the splits and slamming his right pad against the post to keep it a three-goal margin.

Niedermayer hit the net with 4:52 to go and the West was back within two at 5-3.

Nabokov came up with a pair of excellent stops thereafter. He first robbed Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk of a goal ticketed for the top-right corner on a flashy glove stop with under a minute to play. Kovalchuk followed with a breakaway for three-quarters of the ice in the waning seconds, but the Kazakhstani netminder rolled on his side to stop that chance.

The West crept within 5-4 when Getzlaf hit the net with only 41 seconds played in the third.

Nash tied the game at 1:56, finishing off his hat trick by dragging a defender behind him and lifting a backhander under the crossbar. It was the 15th trifecta in All-Star history, and brought down a cluster of hats from the crowd.

Hossa converted a 2-on-1 from Scott Gomez at 4:08 to give the East a one-goal lead, but Phaneuf responded for a 6-6 tie 59 seconds later.

The teams continued to trade scores, as Gaborik’s goal gave the West its first lead of the game, 7-6, with 9:03 left to play, and Staal picked up his second of the game for a 7-7 deadlock with 7:25 left.

“It was the quickest one I’ve played in to date,” noted Flames captain Jarome Iginla. “It was very close, and the guys weren’t giving up any easy goals. You could see everyone was trying to make 2-on-2’s, stop odd-man rushes. We wanted to beat them, and vice-versa.”

Game Notes

Ted Lindsay previously held the record for the fastest goal from the start of an All-Star game by scoring 19 seconds into the 1950 contest, a 7-1 Red Wings win over the rest of the NHL’s top players…Staal is the first player in Hartford/Carolina franchise history to be tabbed All-Star MVP…Since the NHL reverted to the East-West matchup in 2003, each conference has won twice…The East-West pairing also existed from 1969-74 and 1994-97…Philadelphia’s Danny Briere won the MVP last season in Dallas, when he played for Buffalo…Spezza and St. Louis assisted on both Ovechkin goals…The 2009 All-Star game is slated for Bell Centre in Montreal…Swedish pop-rock band The Hives provided pre-game entertainment, and Ne-Yo performed between the second and third periods…Shots on goal were 51 for the West and 33 for the East.

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