Well, Preds fans who weren't counting on the playoff series against Carolina being competitive were proven wrong this weekend. After an exhilarating 5-4 double overtime victory on Friday night, the Preds evened the series at 2 games apiece on Sunday night with...an exhilarating 3-2 double overtime victory.
I'm not here to analyze the game, because quite honestly I understand very little about hockey, but I got curious...has that EVER happened before? Did the Preds just make history with their back-to-back 2OT wins?
Thank God for Wikipedia.
Well, as you can imagine, overtime and even double overtime games aren't all that rare in hockey. Tons of games can't be decided in regulation. In fact, there have been 188 games in NHL playoff history that went to at least two overtimes, and 52 of them have gone into at least 3 extra periods. What happened this weekend wasn't even the longest playoff game the PREDS have been involved in. Back in the 2016 Stanley Cup run, Mike Fisher scored a game-winner in the third overtime to knock off San Jose.
But, have there ever been back-to-back games decided in 2 overtimes?
Well, the answer is yes....but it doesn't happen often. What the Preds did has only been done two other times in NHL history.
In the 2016 playoffs, the New York Islanders and Florida Panthers went into double overtime in both Games 5 and 6, with the Islanders taking each game. Before that, the last instance of back-to-back 2OT playoff games was way back in the 1931 Stanley Cup finals between the Blackhawks and the Canadiens. Only four other times have there even been two 2OT+ games in the same series, albeit not back-to-back.
So how historic was this weekend? I'd say 3 times in 100 years is pretty dang historic.