Lucas Raymond rescued the Detroit Red Wings from the brink of elimination.
Their goal of ending a seven-year playoff drought remains alive heading into the regular-season finale, but they still need another win, plus some help.
Detroit rallied from a three-goal deficit to record a 5-4 victory in overtime against the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Monday.
The same teams will match up again, this time in Montreal, on Tuesday night.
Raymond scored the tying goal with 1:17 remaining in regulation and tallied 4:35 into overtime off a feed from team captain Dylan Larkin.
The Red Wings (40-32-9, 89 points) are among four teams — Washington, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are the others — battling for the final wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference. However, Detroit doesn’t control its own destiny.
There are two scenarios in which the Red Wings would gain entry into the playoffs. They need to defeat the Canadiens again, while Washington needs to lose to Philadelphia in regulation or overtime on Tuesday.
Alternatively, the Wings could lose to Montreal in overtime and still make the playoffs if Washington loses in regulation and Pittsburgh falls to the New York Islanders on Wednesday.
“All tonight did is give us an opportunity,” Detroit center J.T. Compher said. “All this did was give us a chance to finish the job.”
Detroit’s hopes of playing a meaningful game on Tuesday seemed dim when it trailed 4-1 late in the second period.
“I think they had five serious chances in the first two periods, and four of them went in,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said.
Compher scored his second goal of the game to cut the Canadiens’ lead to 4-2. Alex DeBrincat scored his 27th goal of the season to make it 4-3 midway into the third period.
Raymond, the fourth pick of the 2020 NHL Draft, has been the team’s top threat this month. He has seven goals and four assists in seven games.
The third-year forward now has a career-best 31 goals and leads the team with 71 points.
“He’s shown so much growth this season, and he’s turned into a player who loves these moments,” Lalonde said of Raymond, 22. “Things weren’t going in for him, but he had the maturity to keep battling and score two huge goals.”
Detroit put itself in a precarious position by losing to the Capitals in regulation on April 9 and the Penguins in overtime last Thursday. They remained alive by rallying for an overtime win at Toronto on Saturday.
Then came Raymond’s heroics.
“It’s amazing that we could find a way to get two points again tonight,” Raymond said. “We obviously don’t want to put ourselves in that position, but this was huge.”
Alex Lyon protected Detroit’s net on Monday, but James Reimer likely will get the nod on Tuesday.
The Canadiens (30-36-15, 75 points) have lost six of their last seven games (1-3-3), but the last three defeats have been decided past regulation.
Brendan Gallagher led their offense on Monday with a pair of goals, but the Canadiens couldn’t stave off Detroit’s late charge. The Red Wings’ fans celebrated the rally with a long-standing tradition of throwing octopuses onto the ice.
“They got a couple goals, a couple octopuses on the ice, and the building really got going,” Gallagher said. “They’re desperate.”
–Field Level Media
