It was a game that won’t soon be forgotten.
More than six hours after the puck first dropped, the Tampa Bay Lightning emerged victorious over Columbus Blue Jackets with a 3-2 win in five overtimes. Before Brayden Point‘s winner ended this game, multiple records were broken and players on both sides pushed themselves beyond any limit they previously had reached before.
Here is a summary of the history that was made Tuesday afternoon night.
Statistics courtesy Sportsnet Stats and the NHL.
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Old fashioned shootout
Even without Steven Stamkos in the lineup, the Lightning fired a ton of rubber at Joonas Korpisalo in the Blue Jackets net. So much so that the 26-year-old set a new NHL record for saves in a playoff game with 85, blowing Kelly Hrudey’s mark of 73 in the 1987 Easter Epic out of the water.
In the other net, Andrei Vasilevskiy set a new Lightning record with 61 saves, breaking the previous mark set by Nikolai Khabibulin when he made 60 saves in a three-overtime win over the Capitals in 2003.
In total, the two teams combined for a record 151 shots, which smashed the previous record of 132 that occurred twice before in the Easter Epic and in the Canucks’ four-overtime win over the Stars in 2007.
The Lightning’s 88 shots were the most by one team in a game since shots began being tracked in the 1959-60 season. For comparison, the New York Rangers tallied 88 shots in their three-game sweep at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes in the qualifying round.
Point and Victor Hedman led the way with nine shots on goal each. Cam Atkinson, who was hauled down on a controversial non-call shortly before the game-winner was scored, was the only player on either team that didn’t register a shot on goal.
No shortage of ice time
Individual ice time only began being tracked in 1997-98, but Seth Jones set an NHL record by skating 65:06 Tuesday. Hall of Famer Sergei Zubov was the previous record holder after he skated 63:51 for the Dallas Stars in a five-overtime loss to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003. Jones’ teammate, Zach Werenski, wasn’t that far behind him with 61:14 of ice time.
“I feel fine,” Jones said after his historic night. “Lots of minutes, obviously, but I thought I stayed with it and obviously I tried to stay hydrated through the whole thing.”
In total, 23 players skated over 40 minutes in the game, while six of those (Jones, Werenski, Hedman, David Savard, Nick Foligno and Ryan McDonagh) skated over 50. Blue Jackets forward Eric Robinson skated a game-low 17:49, but did get two shifts in the final overtime.
The game finished after 150:27 of game time — 90:27 of which was in overtime — making it the fourth-longest game in NHL history and the second-longest since the league expanded in 1967. The three longer games were: The Detroit Red Wings’ 1-0 win over the Montreal Maroons in 1936 after 116:30 of overtime; the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 1-0 win over the Boston Bruins in 1933 after 104:46 of overtime; and the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2001 after 92:01 of overtime.
In all, only five games have ever gone to at least five overtimes.
Both teams set new records for the longest game in franchise history. The Lightning’s previous mark was a 2-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils in 2003 that lasted 111:12. The Blue Jackets’ longest game before Tuesday came in 2018, when the club lost 2-1 to the Washington Capitals after 89 minutes.
After a day of assumed rest, Game 2 of this series goes Thursday at 3 p.m. ET/ noon PT on Sportsnet.
