NHL: Western Conference 6, Eastern Conference 5 (3-1 in shootout)

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) _ Once again, a tied All-Star game ended in confusion. Only this time, there was a winner, and a performance to rival the greatest in the game's history. <br><br>Dany Heatley, a

Sunday, February 2nd 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) _ Once again, a tied All-Star game ended in confusion. Only this time, there was a winner, and a performance to rival the greatest in the game's history.

Dany Heatley, a not-so-well known star from a last-place team, joined hockey greats such as Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux by scoring a record-tying four goals Sunday. What he couldn't do was lead the Eastern Conference past the West in the first All-Star shootout in NHL history.

After a 5-all regulation tie set up the fourth overtime All-Star game, the West won 6-5 when Markus Naslund, Bill Guerin and Paul Kariya scored in the shootout against goalie Patrick Lalime. Only Heatley _ of course _ scored for the East against goalie Marty Turco.

In a trying, troubling season, the NHL almost got the All-Star game wrong, too, just as baseball did with its All-Star tie fiasco of last summer.

Though Heatley put the puck in the net five times and had an assist, the NHL announced several minutes after the game he would be credited only with four goals _ the fifth player to do so.

Most of the fans left thinking the score was 8-6, as displayed on the scoreboard after the West outscored the East 3-1 in the shootout. That also was changed by the NHL's hockey operations department after most had departed.

No, Bud Selig wasn't running the show, either, even if it might have seemed like it amid the commotion. Maybe it was fitting that, in a season in which two NHL teams filed for bankruptcy, the league didn't immediately get the bottom line right.

``You heard the fans, they didn't want to go home without somebody winning this game,'' Turco said. ``They wanted the East to win, but they were definitely excited and that got me pumped.''

Even Gretzky got excited. The Great One went to the East's locker room before the third period and urged Heatley to go for the record.

``He told me to get five, six or seven,'' Heatley said. ``It was unbelievable for him to come down. Too bad I couldn't get the fifth one.''

Players on both sides said that, unlike the cruise control level of most All-Star games, both teams really wanted to win this one.

``All of a sudden, with 12 to 15 minutes to go, everybody was getting in front of everything, there was a little more stick work and the competitive juices got flowing,'' the West's Al MacInnis said.

Olli Jokinen said, ``It was a lot faster and we even saw a few hits. It's a game for the fans, and I think this was the best (All-Star game) in many years.''

Heatley, a second-year player overshadowed at times on his own Atlanta Thrashers team by Ilya Kovalchuk, matched Gretzky (1983), Lemieux (1990), Vincent Damphousse (1991) and Mike Gartner (1993) as the only players in the All-Star game's 53-year history with four goals.

He's also the youngest at 22 years and 12 days, or one day younger than Gretzky was in '83.

``I was pretty relaxed,'' Heatley said. ``After I got the first one (against Patrick Roy), I was pretty relaxed and the chances kept coming and I put a few in.''

By not counting Heatley's shootout goal, the NHL also prevented him from matching Lemieux's 1988 record of six points in a game.

After getting his fourth goal with six minutes still remaining in the second period, Heatley flashed a typical hockey player's missing-tooth grin, then spent the rest of the fast-moving and relatively low-scoring game trying to get his record fifth goal.

His linemates, who usually included home-ice star Jokinen of Florida and Washington's Jaromir Jagr, tried to get it for him too, repeatedly giving him the puck every time he hit the ice.

He didn't get that fifth goal in regulation, but Heatley did set up Jokinen's first career All-Star goal midway through the third period. Jokinen, a late addition to the game when Saku Koivu pulled out with an injury, also had a memorable debut with a goal and three assists.

Heatley's big game came only one year after he played in the Young Stars game, held the night before the All-Star game.

Fittingly enough, his big game highlighted an afternoon in which the NHL's young stars _ for a change _ truly did overshadow the traditional names such as Roy, Roenick, Lidstrom, Forsberg and Jagr.

Marian Gaborik, who at 20 is nearly two years younger than Heatley, had a goal and two assists to lead the West's first victory in the All-Star game since 1992 _ when it was still known as the Campbell Conference. Maybe Gaborik was pumped up from a pregame compliment by the injured Lemieux, who said the Minnesota Wild forward already is one of the game's five best players.

He looked it, too, as the fastest skater on the ice, scoring the goal that put the West up 3-2 in the first by beating Tampa Bay goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who gave up three goals a year after having a rare All-Star shutout period.

``I've never seen an (All-Star) game like this,'' Khabibulin said. ``Marty (Brodeur) was saying it was (so exciting), it was almost like an Olympics.''

There were some impressive efforts in net, though, especially considering the All-Star score was 14-12 with a World vs. North America format only two years ago. Martin Brodeur of New Jersey allowed only a goal in the first overtime All-Star game since 1988. And Lalime and Turco gave up only a goal each until the shootout.

And the old-timers weren't entirely left out, either _ the 39-year-old MacInnis also scored for the West in his first All-Star appearance in three years, as did longtime stars Mike Modano of Dallas and Peter Forsberg of Colorado. Jagr, who had only eight points in seven previous All-Star appearances, also had two assists for the East.

The East-West format was back for the first time since 1997 after five years of World vs. North America.

The relatively low score was a welcome change from the football-like scores of the most recent All-Star games; 212 goals were scored in the previous 13 games.