If two teams play 60 minutes of hockey, plus 79 minutes and 47 seconds of overtime, they will immediately set a record.
But given the nature of NHL playoff hockey, the Florida Panthers’ 3-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, which ended early Friday morning, wasn’t the longest game ever. It wasn’t even the longest game in five years.
That doesn’t take anything away from the epic battle, which ran from 8pm to 12:54am. But as visible as that four-overtime game was to players, coaches and fans, it was the sixth-longest game in NHL history.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Tampa Bay Lightning needed five overtimes to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was August 2020, the strange summer of the Stanley Cup Tournament. And those games, which lasted 150 minutes and 27 seconds, included five overtimes between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in 2000, six overtimes between Toronto and Boston in 1933, and… One last thing for a moment.
On Thursday night/Friday morning, the Hurricanes took the lead, the Panthers came back, the Hurricanes tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the third, and the real game began after regulation expired.
If there wasn’t a video review, it wouldn’t have been a very memorable game. The Panthers scored and celebrated just two and a half minutes into the first overtime. However, the tape revealed inappropriate contact with the Hurricanes goalie, causing the goal to be overturned.
They skated up and down the ice. There was no goal for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd sessions. It was Matthew Tkachuk who finally scored for Florida with 12 seconds left in the fourth overtime.
The goal wasn’t much to look at. It is a quick throw near the net after a steal. But unlike every other shot during the nearly 80 minutes of overtime, it went in and counted. The Panthers took a 1-1 lead in the conference final series.
“Of course I’m tired, but I think I’m less tired when I win,” Tkachuk said after the game. “I’m sure both teams are gassed right now.”
Aside from goalies Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida) and Frederik Andersen (Carolina), the iron man of the game was Florida defenseman Brandon Montour, who spent 57 minutes and 56 seconds on the ice.
Still, is it a different game from other games? Please tell the Maroons.
On March 24, 1936, in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoff semifinals, the Montreal Maroons faced the Detroit Red Wings at the Old Forum in Montreal. The rule then, as now, was ‘keep playing until someone scores.’
So you thought the Panthers and Hurricanes were having trouble scoring? That night in Montreal, the two professional teams failed to score a single goal in regulation or complete five overtime periods. Finally, with 3:30 left in the sixth overtime, Mud Bruneteau put the puck in the goal to put the Red Wings up 1-0.
(The Associated Press article about the game printed in The Times referred to Mud primarily by his first name, Modere.)
Perhaps broken by the loss, the Maroons also fell in the next two games of a best-of-five series and were eliminated. They played only two more seasons and then folded.
But almost a century later, their records still stand.
