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| Date | January 22, 1994 | |||||||||||||||
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| Arena | Madison Square Garden | |||||||||||||||
| City | New York City | |||||||||||||||
| MVP | Mike Richter (NY Rangers) | |||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 18,200 | |||||||||||||||
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The1994 National Hockey League All-Star Game was held inMadison Square Garden inNew York City, home of theNew York Rangers, on January 22, 1994.
It was the 45th All-Star Game held in NHL history and the first to be rebranded under the year the game was held rather than the edition title.
TheWestern Conference would win the Skills Competition for the second straight season. In the individual eventsAl Iafrate won theHardest Shot event for the second straight season, while bothJohn Vanbiesbrouck andPatrick Roy would share the Goaltenders Competition victory. In addition, thePuck Control Relay event would be introduced as part of the individual competition with its first winner beingRuss Courtnall.
A capacity crowd sawOttawa Senators' rookieAlexei Yashin score with 3:42 left in the third period, to give theEastern Conference a 9–8 victory. TheWestern Conference were leading 8–6 in the third period, untilQuebec Nordiques' centreJoe Sakic scored his first All-Star Game goal to cut the lead to 8–7.Florida Panthers' centreBob Kudelski then scored with 6:01 left to tie the game at 8–8, before Yashin would score the eventual game-winner.New York Rangers' goaltenderMike Richter was named All-Star MVP after he saved 19 of 21 shots in the second period, including three saves on breakaways by sniperPavel Bure. Kudelski was added onto the Eastern Conference lineup due to injuries toMario Lemieux, who along withEd Belfour were the highest-profile players among the several players on the rosters who were unable to play due to injury. (Curtis Joseph was the only injured player who played in this game.)
Other first time All-Stars in New York included all three Western Conference goaltenders—theToronto Maple Leafs'Felix Potvin (who started in place of Ed Belfour), theSan Jose Sharks'Arturs Irbe and the Blues'Curtis Joseph (the game's losing goaltender, who gave up the winning goal in the third period). This was the most recent All-Star Game in which the head coaches were also the head coaches of the defending conference champions (Barry Melrose was the Western Conference's head coach andJacques Demers was the Eastern Conference's head coach).
The 1994 All-Star Game saw the most radical departure from All-Star uniform design since the star-laden1982 All-Star Game uniforms. The NHL retired the use of its league colors of black and orange, and had the uniforms designed based on the new Eastern and Western Conference logos. Both uniforms featured a giant star-based pattern across the entirety of the uniform, utilizing adye-sublimation process that had been piloted in theNational Basketball Association. The Eastern team's jersey featured a teal star pattern over a white base, while the Western team wore purple over a black base. Silver trim (along with the reverse of the base color) separated the star pattern from the base. The respective conference logos appeared on the front, replacing the NHL shield.
The NHL All-Star shield, an orange version of the NHL logo with five black sticks forming the outline of a white star, had been worn on the left shoulder of the uniform since1983. The patch was retired for this game, replaced with a patch featuring each player's individual team logo.
This uniform design would continue to be used through the1997 All-Star Game, with one minor change - the names and sleeve numbers on the Eastern jerseys would be changed from black to white. These uniforms would also provide the inspiration for theDallas Stars to redesign their uniforms later in the decade, introducing their green version as athird jersey in1997 and adding a white version in1999.
| Western Conference | Eastern Conference | |
|---|---|---|
| Final score | 8 | 9 |
| Scoring summary |
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| Penalties | none | none |
| Shots on goal | 17–21–8–46 | 19–18–19–56 |
| Win/loss | L -Curtis Joseph | W -John Vanbiesbrouck |
Jaromir Jagr was voted as a starter, but was not able to play due to injury.Mark Messier was his replacement in the starting lineup.
Mark Howe was originally selected by the commissioner, but was not able to play due to injury.Joe Mullen was his replacement.
