OSLO – For most of the Season 11 All-Star Game, outdoors in Oslo, the fans treated it like a huge party, and so did the players. There was a lot of smiling and unnecessary passes, and no checking and shot blocks. Until the final 4 minutes when it got almost tense.

The Northern Conference had the lead for most of the game and they built it to a 4-goal margin when Moscow’s Nick Leddy finished a Harlem Globetrotters-type play with a deke against Bratislava’s Frederik Andersen. It was the first of 5 goals Andersen allowed in his period in goal .. but he was the best goalie of the period. Jakub Kovar of Edinburgh didn’t buckle down and he gave up 7 goals. The Southern Conference turned up the tempo noticeably and they scored three straight goals late in the game as Evgeny Dadonov (Athens), Tyler Toffoli (Bratislava) and finally Tyler Ennis (Madrid) scored and suddenly it was a tie game. Fans were wondering if trailing the whole game was all part of some genius plan by the Southern Conference’s honorary coach Magnus Carlsen, world chess champion.

In the last 50 seconds, both teams were actually trying fairly hard. Belfast stars Gabriel Landeskog and David Pastrnak with Oslo center Tyler Seguin worked the puck around Andersen’s end of the ice. Pastrnak fed Helsinki defenseman Nerius Alisauskas in the slot and he faked a slapshot (you don’t take that shot in an all-star game) and wristed one into the net with 32 seconds left on the clock.

For the great Oslo fans, the MVP announcement after the game was very pleasant. Ten Northern Conference players and nine from the South had at least 2 points in the game, so there were plenty of candidates. But one player had 3 goals and it was their guy – Tomas Hertl. When Hertl’s name was announced, the fans gave him their loudest cheer of the day.

Game Summary

Goals by Period

Northern: 3-4-5 – 12

Southern: 1-3-7 – 11

First Period

North – Duchene (Bogosian, Eberle)

South – Kronwall (Kuusk, Larkin)

North – Subban (Leddy)

North – Hertl (Del Zotto, Kessel)

(Goalies: North, Salak, 1 GA; South, Pickard 3 GA)

Second Period

North – Benn (Gostisbehere, Tarasenko)

South – Kadri (Oshie)

South – Yakupov (Kronwall, Forsberg)

North – Hertl (Duchene, Pastrnak)

North – Hertl (Pastrnak, Alisauskas)

North – Eberle (Henrique, Kessel)

South – Toffoli (Kopitar, Stone)

(Goalies: North, Holtby, 3 GA; South, Hammond, 4 GA)

Third Period

North – Leddy (Seguin, Landeskog)

South – Yakupov (Kuznetsov, Ennis)

South – Doughty (Toffoli)

North – Landeskog (Seguin, Ekman-Larsson)

South – Stepan (Johnson, Schultz)

South – Karlsson (Kuznetsov, Stepan)

North – Kessel (Bogosian, Nikulin)

North – Duchene (Ekman-Larsson, Gostisbehere)

South – Dadonov (Oshie, Kadri)

South – Toffoli (Karlsson, Stepan)

South- Ennis (Kuznetsov, Yakupov)

North – Alisauskas (Pastrnak, Landeskog)

(Goalies: North, Kovar 7 GA; South, Andersen 5 GA)

3 Stars

1 – Tomas Hertl, Oslo, North (3 goals) Game MVP

2 – Nail Yakupov, Prague, South (2 goals, 1 assist)

3 – Matt Duchene, Belfast, North (2 goals, 1 assist)

Attendance: 38,711