On Sunday, February 2, the actual All-Star Game began. The
Eastern Conference was forced to name five injury replacements to their roster, as
Ed Belfour,
Brian Leetch,
Mario Lemieux,
Saku Koivu and
Mats Sundin were all out with injury. The
Atlanta Thrashers'
Dany Heatley opened the scoring for the Eastern Conference by scoring past
Colorado Avalanche's
Patrick Roy just five and a half minutes into the first period. Colorado's
Peter Forsberg and
Dallas Stars'
Mike Modano scored the next two goals to give the
Western Conference a 2–1 lead. However, Heatley would score his second consecutive goal on Roy, tapping in a rebound of a shot by
Washington Capitals'
Jaromir Jagr to tie the score at 2, a bit more than halfway through the first period. Five minutes later,
Minnesota Wild's
Marian Gaborik scored by banging in
Los Angeles Kings'
Mathieu Schneider's rebound past
Tampa Bay Lightning's
Nikolai Khabibulin to restore the Western lead at 3–2, which remained at the end of the first period. Goaltenders Roy and Khabibulin would then be replaced by
Chicago Blackhawks'
Jocelyn Thibault and
New Jersey Devils'
Martin Brodeur for the West and the East, respectively. The change of goaltenders made little difference for Heatley, as he finished his
hat trick with a
wrist shot past Thibault to tie the game at 3. For the third consecutive time, the West replied when
Vancouver Canucks'
Ed Jovanovski caught a deflection off the skate of
Washington Capitals'
Sergei Gonchar. Heatley then scored his fourth goal of the game by converting a pass from hometown hero
Florida Panthers'
Olli Jokinen and shooting it over Thibault's glove. Heatley's four goals in an All-Star game tied the previous records of
Wayne Gretzky,
Mario Lemieux,
Vincent Damphousse and
Mike Gartner. He also became the first player in All-Star history to score four goals with no one else scoring in between them. No more goals were scored in the second period, and
Ottawa Senators'
Patrick Lalime came in to play goal for the Eastern Conference, while
Dallas Stars'
Marty Turco came in for the West.
St. Louis Blues'
Al MacInnis scored past Lalime's glove to give the West a 5–4 lead, a minute and a half into the third period. Jokinen tied the game by taking a pass from Jaromir Jagr and skating in on a partial breakaway and putting a hard wrist shot past Turco to tie the game at 5. With ten minutes left in regulation, neither team were able to score on the two goaltender. The third period ended in a 5–5 tie and the winner of the
53rd NHL All-Star Game would have to be decided in overtime for the first time since
1988. Patrick Lalime and Marty Turco remained in goal for the overtime, and preserved a scoreless extra period. For the first time in history, an NHL All-Star Game would be settled in a shootout. The Vancouver Canucks'
Markus Naslund, Dallas Stars'
Bill Guerin and the
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim's
Paul Kariya would score against Lalime for the Western Conference. On the other side, Turco only let in one goal in the shootout, which was scored by Dany Heatley. (Heatley's shootout goal did not count towards his regulation total of four, leaving him tied for the record.) The Western Conference won the game with a 6–5 shootout victory. Heatley, with a total of five points, was named All-Star MVP.
Uniforms The NHL carried over the uniform design from the previous All-Star Game. Since the uniforms introduced the year before used the colors of the conference logos, the Western Conference used the same blue jersey worn by the 2002 North American team. However, due to the contrast issues from the 2002 game, the burgundy jersey worn by the World team was replaced with a white version worn by the Eastern Conference team. Both uniforms continued to feature black as the primary trim color, with silver and white accents. The player names and numbers on the back of the Western team's uniforms were rendered in black, however, leaving the uniforms completely devoid of the conference's burgundy color. Both teams continued to wear flag patches representing each player's homeland on the left shoulder. This would be the last use of national flags on the All-Star uniforms to date.
Summary •
Referees:
Dennis LaRue,
Dan O'Halloran •
Linesmen:
Jean Morin,
Tim Nowak •
Television:
ABC,
CBC,
SRC ==National anthems==