The Game that Never Ended: The 5OT Story

Scoreboard at Scotiabank Arena. Source: nbcsports.com

The date is August 11, 2020, time, 9:00 pm ET. Players are tired, they are dripping with sweat, but the game isn’t over yet, they just entered the 5th overtime of the game. Tampa Bay came into the game as the 2nd seed in the East, Columbus came in as the 7th after a 5 game series with the Maple Leafs. This game was everything but normal.

Earlier that day, at 3:09 pm ET, the puck dropped at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario. This game would be a rematch of the playoff series that happened last year when the Blue Jackets swept the Presidents’ Trophy winner. Boone Jenner would win the game’s opening faceoff and the game would officially begin. Tampa would get 3 shots before the game’s first penalty by Alex Killorn for tripping which would put Columbus on the power-play. It wouldn’t take long for the Blue Jackets to get on the board as Pierre-Luc Dubois tipped a shot in front from Alexandre Texier. About 30 seconds later, Boone Jenner would block a shot from Kevin Shattenkirk, the first of many that day. About 4 minutes later, the Lightning would get on the board as well. Brayden Point would score his second goal of the playoffs to tie it up. Now if we just look at the 1st period of Game 1 in 2020 and compare it to 2019, you will see a completely different game. Tampa would be up 3-0 at the end of the first the year earlier, this year, it was only 1-1. Before the end of the period, Texier of the Jackets would get a high sticking penalty. With it being so late in the period it would transfer over to the second. At the end of the first, Tampa would have full control, leading in shots on goal by a score of 14-6. The second period featured not as much drama. Not much really happened in the second period, until the end. Oliver Bjorkstrand would score a goal from the top of the circle to make it 2-1 Jackets. This goal would come with 48 seconds left in the second. The puck dropped to start the third period, and 23 seconds later, Yanni Gourde would score off of a tipped shot by Ryan McDonagh to tie it up at 2. Little did they know that this would be the last goal for over 4 hours. One final penalty would happen in regulation as it was a Too Many Man penalty by the Lightning. After countless failed attempts, no one was able to score. So the buzzer sounded to signal overtime.

At this point in the story, I was coming from Physical Therapy. I think it was around 5:30 pm EDT when I got the notification that it was going into overtime. So I made sure that I got home as fast as I could to watch it. Going into overtime, you will see the Lightning take over control once again. But in the beginning, Columbus would come out strong. Spending most of the first 3 minutes in the Tampa zone. But even after many shots, both goalies still came out on top. Tampa Bay would lead in shots once again this period with 12 shots compared to Columbus’s 8. As I buckled down on my couch, I figured the game couldn’t go on for too long. I didn’t know how wrong I was going to be. Just like in the first overtime, in the second overtime, there would be no penalties. Now we would only see 2 penalties in the entirety of the 5 overtimes. Now in comparison, there were 7 penalties in regulation. Yanni Gourde would win the opening faceoff which would be Tampa’s first time winning the first faceoff since the 2nd period. Something I found incredible was that Tampa would not have a shot in the 2nd overtime until 10:57 left in the period. Tampa would have 4 shot attempts that included 3 blocked shots and 1 missed shot. Less than 30 seconds after that shot, Columbus would have yet another blocked shot. Tampa would not get their next shot until 4 minutes later. This would come when Tampa spent almost 3 whole minutes in the Jackets zone. Now those 3 minutes only brought 2 shots and 2 missed shots. Later, the 2nd overtime would end, bringing the game to the third overtime. In the 2nd overtime, the Jackets defense would be outstanding totaling 6 blocked shots in the period, which included 2 by defenseman David Savard. Columbus would lead in shots in a period for the first time in the 2nd overtime, 10-6.

To start off the third overtime, Boone Jenner would once again win the opening faceoff, only for Tampa to get into the Jackets zone shortly after. Right after going into the zone, Columbus would have yet 2 more blocked shots, one by Jenner, and one by Dean Kukan. Actually, Columbus would have 3 blocked shots in less than the first 3 minutes. But then it happened, less than 5 minutes into the third overtime, we had our first penalty since the third period. And that penalty came from the captain of the Blue Jackets, Nick Foligno. He would be penalized for high sticking. Wennberg would win the defensive draw and get it out of the zone I’m guessing. To be honest, I don’t know, the NHL.com GameCenter didn’t give that info. But what they did tell me is that about a minute later, Nikita Kucherov’s shot was blocked by defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, the 4th by the Jackets that period. But after that blocked shot, Tampa would take control of the advantage. They would win a defensive zone draw after a stoppage by Korpisalo and proceed to get 4 more shots before the next stoppage, 3 of which came from Yanni Gourde. Eventually, the penalty expired after another blocked shot by Gavrikov and no real damage was done by the Lightning. As the clock wound down, Columbus would get blocked shot after blocked shot. As a matter of fact, Columbus would get 7 more blocked shots in the final 10 minutes, 2 of which came from Gavrikov, giving him 4 blocked shots in the period. However, besides all the blocked shots, Tampa would still lead in shots that period with 14 shots compared to Columbus’s 8.

Yanni Gourde would again win the opening faceoff to start off the 7th period of the game. Tampa would immediately start attacking as they got 2 shots in the first 20 seconds. But then a minute later, 2 more blocked shots by the Jackets would come. One was even blocked that sent the puck out of play. With 7:59 left in the 4th overtime, Toronto scoreboard executives started to have a little fun. After a shot by Columbus and a stoppage of play, the scoreboard said, “IT’S TIME FOR THE 7TH PERIOD STRETCH.” One of the reasons they said this is to copy baseball, as they have the 7th inning stretch. Hockey has the 7th period stretch now. The other reason I think is to entertain everyone watching the game. Now, to be honest, not much really happened in the 4th overtime. Tampa basically dominated the whole thing, leading in shots once again 14-8. One thing that happened though was the game after between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes was canceled until the next morning.

NHL 7th Period Stretch. Source: NHL.com (Fox Sports)

Now the game was going into the 5th overtime, and I was still watching it. I watched every single overtime of this game, it was insane. Heading into the 5th overtime, the Toronto scoreboard people thought that maybe they should apologize to all the fans watching the game. So they did.

Toronto apologizing to fans watching the games. Source: twitter.com (Fox Sports)

Yanni Gourde would once again win the opening faceoff, two in a row. Columbus would get off to an early start with a shot by Boone Jenner. Columbus would get 2 more shots before Tampa’s first. But now, Columbus would be in trouble. Defenseman Dean Kukan would get a Delay of Game penalty for throwing the puck over the glass, giving Tampa a prime opportunity. But, thanks to the Columbus defense, and a blocked shot by Savard, Columbus was able to prevent Tampa from scoring, let alone a shot on goal. But, one thing I didn’t know was that Tampa almost had an offside call late into the power-play. Right before the Savard blocked shot, the puck squeaked out after an offensive faceoff win and Kevin Shattenkirk was just able to save it.

Shattenkirk saving the puck from going offside. Source: twitter.com (Fox Sports)

Little did he know how he would save the game because almost 10 seconds later, Brayden Point ended the game off of a shot right at the tops of the circles. It would be Tampa’s first and only shot of the 5th overtime.

Lightning celebrating the game-winning goal. Source: NHL.com (Chase Agnello-Dean / National Hockey League / Getty)

Point would score at exactly 9:22 pm EDT, making the game last 6 hours and 13 minutes that consisted of 150 minutes and 27 seconds of game time. This game would be the 4th longest game in NHL history. And many other records would be broken in that game. First off, defenseman Seth Jones for the Blue Jackets broke the record for the highest time on ice in a single game. Jones would have an ice time of more than a regulation game, totaling up to 65 minutes and 6 seconds, almost 2 minutes more than second place, Sergei Zubov. Blue Jackets goaltender, Joonas Korpisalo would break multiple records. Firstly, he would break the record for most saves in a playoff game with 85, almost 15 more than second-place who held the record for almost 40 years. He would also break the record for most shots against him when he faced 88 shots. Another record he broke was for the most overtime saves, in which he had 46. 4 more than the legendary Ron Tugnutt. It’s no wonder that he was named the first star of the game. The entire team of Tampa Bay broke the record for most shots in a playoff game when they put 88 shots on the Jackets. They also broke the record for most shots combined in a playoff game, as both teams combined for a total of 151 shots. Finally, Tampa broke the record for most shots in overtime as they had a total of 47.

Now, the stats of the game. Tampa led in shots that game as they put 88 shots on the board compared to Columbus’s 63. There were a total of 138 faceoffs in the game with Columbus winning 66 of them, giving them 48% on the day, and Tampa won 72 of them, giving the 52%. Now, Columbus actually led in faceoffs when it was even strength. Columbus was 62 of 120 (52%) during even strength. But they were only 3 of 10 (30%) on the power-play and they were 1 of 8 (13%) when they were short-handed. Columbus actually won most of their faceoffs in the neutral zone as they won 59% of all the faceoffs in the 5 neutral zone faceoff dots. In the offensive zone, they were only 38% and in the defensive zone, they split it with Tampa as they both went 50%. Now (for players that took at least 20 faceoffs) Columbus’s leading faceoff person was Pierre-Luc Dubois as he went 17 for 32 giving him a 53%. Tampa’s best faceoff man was Brayden Point who went 22 for 36 with 61%. Now, I’m going to look at the time on ice for a second. The leading time on ice went to Seth Jones with 65:06. In those 65 minutes, Jones took 76 shifts. Of those 76 shifts, he averaged 51 seconds a shift. So this shows that you don’t need to take super long shifts to be successful.

There would also be a total of 9 power-play opportunities, 5 for Columbus, 4 for Tampa. The only time someone scored on the power-play was the very first goal of the game by Pierre-Luc Dubois. Another thing I find amazing is the number of blocks that Columbus was able to get. The Blue Jackets totaled an amount of 62 blocks that game, 1 less than the number of shots they got. And they also more than doubled the number of blocked shots that Tampa got who had 30. One other thing I find incredible is the number of icings that happen in this game. In the 1st period, there were 2 icings, the one 2nd, there was only 1. But in the 3rd, there were 5 icings and each other overtime there was around 4 per overtime period. So it looked like there were more icings the more they got tired. But the problem is that in the NHL if you ice the puck you can’t change. There is an amazing chart about this game and I will show it here. If you want to visit it on the site, I will apply a link to it in the description of it.

Shift chart

There are many others I want to show but they are just too many pages. So if you want to see for yourself, go to this link on NHL.com and scroll all the way to the bottom on the right-hand side until you see “Official Game Reports”. There you will find many pages of stats from this incredible game.

Stats from: NHL.com, thescore.com, records.nhl.com