Wings clinch 24th straight playoff berth with bittersweet point at Montreal

Steve Yzerman was a young captain enjoying another 50 goal, 100-point season, Bob Probert and Joey Kocur -- the Bruise Brothers -- ruled the league as the most feared enforcer tandem in NHL history, and Bryan Murray was in his first year as coach and general manager way back in the 1991, when something very special was just beginning.

That Red Wings team advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and they have every year since -- and counting after a wild sequence of events Thursday night. Detroit earned a point, but deserved two; goaltender Jimmy Howard allowed three bad goals, including the game-winner in overtime in a 4-3 loss at Montreal.

But just a few minutes later, Boston -- last season's President's Trophy winner as the team with the best record in the NHL -- lost to Florida and dropped out of the playoff standings while Ottawa continued its remarkable run with a 3-0 win over the Rangers in New York to leapfrog Pittsburgh, which holds the second wildcard spot.

So with one game remaining -- Saturday at Carolina -- Detroit finally puts the 'x' next to its name in the NHL standings.

Playoffs clinched -- 24 straight years.

"It's great to be in the playoffs," a relieved coach Mike Babcock said. "I can't tell you how thrilled I am for our guys and for our city. When you've been in as long as we have, you feel like you've got a real obligation to the city. You don't want to let the people down. We have such great fans and such great support. You want to be in there for them."

For the second critically important game in a row, the Pavel Datsyuk-Henrik Zetterberg tandem did most of the heavy lifting.  

Datsyuk had a goal, his 26th, and an assist, and Tomas Tatar added his 29th. Zetterberg assisted on both those goals and Darren Helm scored a tiebreaking, unassisted shorthanded goal, his 15th.

But Howard, though he made some great saves at other times, couldn't preserve the lead. With his team two men down but doing a good job on the penalty kill, Howard appeared to get caught cheating a bit when he allowed a bad-angle goal that tied the game midway through the third. And he pleaded guilty on the game-winner, which also came on a horrible angle.

"I started to cheat there on the overtime one," he said. "I've got to stay with the puck there. That's very uncharacteristic."

So, too, was Montreal another by Jeff Petry that broke a 1-1 tie early in the second period. Petry, the Ann Arbor native and son of former Tigers pitcher Dan Petry, split the defense and shot the puck through a wide opening between Howard's pads for his seventh goal.

Details, details. The only one that matters, at least for a day or so, is that the Red Wings are in the Stanley Cup tournament.

Playoffs clinched -- 24 straight years.

That's the longest streak in professional sports, and the longest by far in the NHL. San Jose had the second longest, at 10 years, but the Sharks failed to qualify this spring.

"For me, in the 10 years since the lockout we've been the only team that's made the playoffs every single year -- and that tells you something," said Babcock, who coincidentally has been Detroit's coach for each of those 10 seasons. "We've had obviously a ton of roster changes, and now we've got a bunch of kids and they're getting better."

A few more pertinent footnotes from that 1990-91 squad:

- Gerard Gallant, an alternate captain and Yzerman's gritty left wing, is now the coach in Florida. His team, playing an honest game as he did for a lot of years in a Red Wings uniform, put the hurt on Boston with a 4-2 victory Thursday in a game that, for the Panthers at least, was meaningless.

- And Murray? He's the GM in Ottawa facing a much bigger battle than a team trying to make the playoffs. He was diagnosed not long ago with stage four colon cancer, and a couple of huge wins this week that extended a 26-4-4 streak has lifted his spirits immensely.

"My sister actually texted me and she was talking about the game (Tuesday's 4-3 overtime win over Pittsburgh) and asked me how I was feeling because she knows I had chemo yesterday," Murray told the Ottawa Citizen. "Well, you don't sleep the night after you have chemo, but I feel pretty good today because of the team."

Murray's Senators remain the only team that can overtake Detroit for third in the Atlantic Division. But if the Wings can manage just a point in the regular-season finale Saturday at Carolina, they'll secure third and play either Tampa Bay or Montreal in the opening round.

If the Wings come up empty, Ottawa can jump into third with a win at Philadelphia and knock Detroit as far down as eighth, meaning the Wings would face the President's Trophy-winning New York Rangers in the first round.

Which might explain why Babcock wasn't in the mood right after the game to talk about resting some of his players Saturday in preparation for the postseason.

"The first thing I'm going to do is have a beer," he said, "and we'll figure those things out tomorrow."

Playoffs clinched -- 24 straight years.

And counting.