NHL ALL-STAR INSIDE LOOK: THE PUCKS STOPPED HERE FOR ONCE, ALL-STAR GOALTENDERS WERE ONES TO STEAL THE SHOW.

Byline: Rich Hammond Staff Writer

Patrick Roy's memory is a little fuzzy about last year's NHL All-Star Game, even though a 14-12 final score should be pretty easy to remember.

``I don't recall, wasn't it 4-2 or something like that?'' Roy said, suppressing a smile. ``That's how I remember it.''

The goalies had good reason to want to forget last year's game, but except for a three-minute scoring spurt by the World team at the end of the third period Saturday, they earned some redemption in Saturday's All-Star Game at Staples Center.

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped all 20 shots he faced in the third period and allowed his World team to rally from a two-goal deficit and win 8-5. Khabibulin, Dominik Hasek and Tommy Salo combined to stop 45 of the 50 North America shots they faced.

Khabibulin tied an All-Star Game record for saves in a single period, set by Hasek in 1997, and the North Americans were shut out in the third period for the second time in three years. Olaf Kolzig had a perfect third period in goal in 2000.

Take away the two empty-net goals scored in the final minute, and the teams would have totaled the fewest goals in an All-Star Game since 1996.

``It's (usually) an offensive show,'' World team coach Scotty Bowman said. ``The way the goalies made some saves, when you look at all six of them, you could say they all made saves that could have been goals just as easily.''

Khabibulin, who is expected to start for Russia in the Olympics later this month, already had watched Roy, a future Hall of Famer, give up three goals to the North Americans in the first period.

Jose Theodore made the highlight save of the afternoon, a point-blank stop on Patrik Elias late in the second period, but he faced just nine shots and allowed one goal. Khabibulin was peppered in a wide-open third period but kept his team in the game.

``I hope I have some luck left for the rest of the year, because I think I used a lot of it today,'' Khabibulin said. ``You don't totally expect to have a shutout when you play games like this. You just try to go out there and stop as much as you can.

``(Roy and Theodore) made a few incredible saves. You just kind of shake your head out there. But you can't really expect to make those saves either when you play.''

The flip side of Khabibulin's glory was North America goalie Sean Burke, who gave up three goals on 14 shots in the third period and took the loss.

``I feel pretty good about how I played, even though I gave up three goals in a period,'' Burke said. ``You can't say that after very many games.''

Of course, not many games feature players such as Mario Lemieux, Sergei Fedorov, Teemu Selanne and Joe Sakic coming at goaltenders nonstop for 60 minutes. And defense always has been frowned upon in All-Star games.

Salo entered the game in the second period, and after just two minutes of action he found Lemieux and Paul Kariya, two of the most dynamic playmakers in the world, bearing down on him in a 2-on-1. Lemieux scored easily.

``It was great to see some shots early,'' Salo said, ``but when I saw Lemieux and Kariya coming at me, that was a little tougher.''

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Photo:

Montreal goaltender Jose Theodore sprawls to make a save for the North America team Saturday, a day when the goalies stole the show.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer