The Washington Capitals claimed the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference on Tuesday night, thanks to an unusual turn of events.
Heading into Tuesday, the Capitals had the advantage over the Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers for the NHL’s final playoff spot. A win in Washington and they were in. If they lost in regulation time, overtime or a shootout, there would be hope for the teams that chased them.
The Flyers had the most unique path to keeping hope alive. They only had to beat the Capitals in regulation, and hoped the Red Wings and Penguins would also lose before overtime. Had that happened, Washington and Philadelphia would have been tied in the standings in wins, points, regulation wins, and regulation and overtime wins. The only tiebreaker in their favor was the mutual points.
Knowing all this, John Tortorella’s team had to win under regular rules to have a chance at the postseason.
That led to the scenario where the Flyers were tied with the Capitals in the third period, knowing they had to prevent Washington from getting any points out of the game in the first place. With time running out, Tortorella pulled his goalie for an extra attacker with three minutes to play, leading to an empty-netter by TJ Oshie and a 2–1 win for Washington.
“We’ll take it,” Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin said. “Thanks, Philly.”
That goal from Oshie not only put the Capitals in the playoffs, it also eliminated the Flyers, Red Wings and Penguins.
What Tortorella didn’t know when he called goalkeeper Samuel Ersson to the bench was that the Flyers were already eliminated at that moment.
David Perron’s goal with 3.3 seconds left against the Montreal Canadiens gave the Red Wings at least a point, ending the Flyers’ playoff dreams. Detroit was going to win in a shootout, but they were already eliminated by the Capitals’ win.
“I immediately received information about the game in Detroit [Washington] scored their empty-netter,” Tortorella said afterward. ‘I think it happened quite close together. But I’ll pull it [in that situation]. That was the right time to pull it. [I] didn’t know anything was going on with Detroit at the time. But immediately afterward, our video people told us that Detroit was just working overtime.”
The Capitals now face the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers in the first round – the sixth time the two franchises have met in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2006.
