Marian Gaborik Is M.V.P. of N.H.L. All-Star Game Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press Daniel Alfredsson (11), battling in the corner with Dion Phaneuf, scored two goals for the All-Star team he captained. OTTAWA - The N.H.L."s two biggest stars were missing from the All-Star Game, but that did not seem to matter. The event was its usual just-for-laughs exhibition, the climax of a happy weekend for a league that continues to prosper but may be only months from a labor impasse. Marian Gaborik led the way with three goals - two against a Rangers teammate, goalie Henrik Lundqvist - and added an assist, earning most valuable player honors as Team Chara beat Team Alfredsson, 12-9, on Sunday. "I think he's one of the best, if not the best, goalie in the league, but I am glad I could get a couple of goals against him," Gaborik said. No one in the capacity crowd at Scotiabank Place seemed to mind that Sidney Crosby missed a second straight All-Star Game, this year because of a recently discovered neck injury compounding his persistent concussion symptoms, or perhaps causing them. Nor did anyone seem to miss Alex Ovechkin, who skipped the game in protest of a league-imposed suspension for an illegal check. "You obviously want to have those guys, but there are a lot of great young talents in the game," said Calgary's Jarome Iginla, smiling after signing the sweater of a teammate for the day, Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara. Few All-Stars were more fun to watch Sunday than Gaborik, who opened the scoring in the game's fifth minute. He beat Lundqvist in close and then pointed his stick like a rifle and pretended to fire it at him - an echo of the goal celebration their Rangers teammate Artem Anisimov did earlier this season against Tampa Bay, which touched off a small brawl. "We have to have a discussion on the plane back, how much he has to pay in fines," Lundqvist said, laughing. I think Anisimov was 2,500 bucks, right? Gaborik scored again on Lundqvist in the first, giving him bragging rights in a chirping contest the two have had on Twitter and in the news media. "I tried to get into his mind over the whole weekend," Gaborik said. Gaborik, who played on a line with his Slovakian countryman Marian Hossa of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Russian star Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings, added his third goal against the Los Angeles Kings" Jonathan Quick in the second period. Gaborik assisted on a third-period goal by Chara, also a countryman. Gaborik's goals, along with a strong performance by defenseman Dan Girardi, and Carl Hagelin's victory in the speed skating race during the skills competition, will stoke enthusiasm among Rangers fans that their first-place team is headed to big things this spring. Gaborik's M.V.P. award was the first by a Ranger since Wayne Gretzky in 1999. Less than a decade ago, the N.H.L. was thought to be lapsing into obscurity. It bogged down on the ice, stumbled into a lockout that wiped out the 2004-5 season and ran through a series of Sun Belt-based Stanley Cup finals that failed to excite even the most avid hockey fans. It started bouncing back in the late 2000s. The Penguins" Crosby and the Capitals" Ovechkin emerged as electrifying stars; traditional hockey cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Vancouver made the Stanley Cup finals; the Winter Classic was born; and revenue and television ratings rose sharply. According to the conventional wisdom, the N.H.L. would be carried by its biggest stars, Crosby and Ovechkin. But the league is thriving without them, with Crosby sidelined for all but a handful of games over more than a year's time, and Ovechkin's skills diminishing. But other stars have replaced them, like Tim Thomas of Boston, whose spectacular goaltending led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup championship last season. On Sunday, Thomas stopped 18 of 21 shots in the third period for Team Chara, making him the winning goalie in all four All-Star Games he has played, a record. It came after a week in which even Thomas's star began to fade after he boycotted the Bruins" visit to the White House for political reasons. Thomas shrugged it off. One of his saves denied a hat trick to Ottawa's hometown hero, Daniel Alfredsson, who has captained the Senators for 12 of the 16 years he has been with the team. "I wasn't thinking about his hat trick," Thomas said. I just didn't want to let the other team get any closer. Amid the prosperity and jovial mood of the All-Star weekend, there was a reminder that the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players expires in September. The players now earn 57 percent of revenue, but the owners may be looking to roll back that figure to around 50 percent, as N.F.L. and N.B.A. owners recently did after lockouts. "I hope we don't go down that road, because we saw what happened in the other sports," Donald Fehr, the executive director of the players union, said on Saturday.