The National Hockey League playoff field is set.
The Washington Capitals beat the Philadelphia Flyers in a wild finish on Tuesday night to clinch the 16th and final playoff spot. Three teams — the Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Detroit Red Wings — were all playing simultaneously Tuesday night and had their fate hanging in the balance of the outcome of the Flyers-Capitals game. Only one of the three teams would advance to the quest for the Stanley Cup.
The minute-by-minute countdown of how the Eastern Conference’s eighth seed was decided made for an exhilarating finish to hockey’s regular season.
According to NHL Public Relations, here’s how it went down:
The Capitals (40-31-11) and Red Wings (41-32-9) finished tied with 91 points apiece in the standings, but Washington held the tiebreaker to claim the final playoff berth.
Detroit extended its streak of consecutive seasons missing the postseason to eight, the longest in the NHL.
“I was the most excited I’ve ever been in my life for about a quarter second when we scored in the shootout,” Red Wings goaltender James Reimer told the Detroit Free-Press. “Then I saw none of the guys were excited, and I knew what our fate was.”
The Capitals got the playoff spot over the Red Wings because of the regulation wins tiebreaker. Washington had 32 regulation wins, compared to 27 for Detroit.
The Penguins are in the rare position of enjoying a second consecutive early summer. Pittsburgh had not missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons since 2003-04 and 2005-06. There was no 2004-05 season because of an NHL-imposed lockout.
The NHL regular season concludes Thursday.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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