It may have taken 139 minutes and 47 seconds, but Florida Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk mercifully ended the sixth-longest game in NHL history by breaking a 2-2 tie with the Carolina Hurricanes in quadruple overtime.
Florida players thought they had the game won in the first overtime, but Ryan Lomberg’s apparent goal was overturned due to a controversial goalie-interference call on the Panthers’ Colin White.
The exhausting, marathon victory gives the upstart, eighth-seeded Panthers a 1-0 edge in the Eastern Conference Finals over the heavily favored Hurricanes heading into Game 2 of the series on Saturday. Thursday’s opener was easily the longest game in either team’s history, ending more than five hours after the puck dropped in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Replays showed White – while being bumped by Carolina’s Jack Drury – making skate-to-skate contact with Carolina netminder Frederik Andersen, then bumping Andersen, who found himself on all fours as Lomberg’s shot crossed the red line. It turned out, the game was nowhere near its epic finish.
Later in the fourth, a deflected Aaron Ekblad shot ricocheted off the crossbar but failed to find the back of the Hurricanes’ net. Fans enduring the marathon playoff matchup joked about their own fatigue on social media.
There were other opportunities as well, such as Sebastian Aho’s shot off the post in the early stages of the fourth overtime, as Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky was caught out of position. Minutes later, during a Carolina power play, Jesper Fast whiffed in front of the net on a would-be game winner.
One Hurricanes supporter shared a picture of seemingly exhausted friends in the crowd, tweeting: ‘The fellas have work tomorrow. 10 minutes till quadruple overtime.’ Meanwhile, in Alaska, a YouTuber known as ‘The Sports Beard’ shared a photo of his outdoor setup, which included a firepit, table, sprawling lake, and bright, blue sky.
The second period, however, belonged to the Panthers, as Aleksander Barkov’s equalizer was followed by Carter Verhaeghe’s go-ahead goal at the 17:43 mark in the frame.
‘Quadruple OT 9:30 PM AKST,’ The Sports Beard tweeted. The first period was nearly scoreless until Carolina’s Seth Jarvis netted a power play goal with 12 seconds left before the first intermission. The absolute laser of a slap shot was assisted by Sebastian Aho and Brent Burns.
But the Hurricanes battled back in the third, tying the game on another power play goal – this time from Stefan Noesen. Much of the credit for Thursday’s win goes to Bobrovsky and the Panthers defense, which prevented an even-strength goal for nearly seven full periods of play.
The NHL ends tied games differently during the regular season that it does in the playoffs. Whereas postseason games enter a limitless string of 20-minute sudden-death overtimes until one team scores, regular season contests have a five-minute extra frame before ending in a shootout.
More recently, the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins played five overtimes in the 2000 conference semi-finals, before Philly’s Keith Primeau broke a 1-1 tie 92 minutes into the game.
The longest game in playoff history remains a six-overtime marathon between the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons in 1935. The wings ultimately won, 1-0, on a (very) late game-winner from Mud Bruneteau.
