Alex DeBrincat’s wild final-minute goal steals point for Red Wings in thriller

DETROIT — The Red Wings and Washington Capitals had already seen plenty of emotional swings in the first 59 minutes of their game Thursday night.

Patrick Kane was breaking the record for career points by a U.S.-born skater, then having it called back for offside, and then breaking the record again — for real this time. There was an unsuccessful goaltender interference challenge by the Red Wings on the Capitals’ go-ahead goal midway through the third period. Then, there was an Alex DeBrincat backdoor goal at six-on-five to give the Red Wings late life.

But even those weren’t as shocking as what happened with 53 seconds left in regulation, when a DeBrincat dump-in along the boards took a strange bounce, apparently at the spot where the board’s photo hole was, and then went off Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren and in to tie the score at 3-3.

“I saw it come off and kind of go in his stomach, and I knew it had a chance to go in because I think those ones are pretty tricky,” DeBrincat said. “Obviously a lucky bounce, and lucky to get one point here.”

That goal sent the game to overtime and then a shootout, where there was one more major emotional moment in store. Lindgren appeared to injure himself at the OT buzzer, but he stayed in for the shootout. Detroit’s first two shooters scored on him, but Dylan Larkin hit the crossbar on the Red Wings’ third attempt. The Capitals scored on all three attempts against John Gibson to come out with the win.

Lindgren had to be helped down the tunnel by teammates afterward, capping a night that was wild from the start.

“It was an odd game, it really was,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “If I was to sum it up, I would say it was a real good comeback by us. It looked pretty bleak there for a while. The bounce — that reminds me of Joe Louis (Arena) sometimes, the way those boards would work in our favor. I don’t think we’ll see many more goals like that, but we’ll take it.”

That bounce helped Detroit secure at least one point by getting to overtime, which matters extra right now in a merciless Atlantic Division. Tampa Bay, Montreal, Buffalo and Boston won Thursday, cutting the Red Wings’ lead in the standings over the latter three to just three points, with Montreal and Buffalo also holding games in hand. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay moved to two points clear of Detroit for first place, with three games in hand.

The comeback to get to overtime, and the wild bounce that punctuated it, are only a part of the story, however.

“We dealt with some frustration, coaches included,” McLellan said. “We were just as frustrated as everybody else. I don’t think that was a good quality to have. You could say resilient again, but I’d go back to, ‘Why are we putting ourselves in a resilient spot?’ Let’s try and clean it up earlier, so we’re not there.”

Indeed, the Red Wings’ need for a comeback was largely a mess of their own making. The Capitals scored on a failed Red Wings breakout attempt, shortly after Detroit’s early overturned goal. Their second goal came on a play that McLellan still felt postgame should have been overturned for goalie interference, with Dylan Strome seemingly poking a puck out from under Gibson’s glove and scoring on a wraparound.

Detroit’s five-on-five offense was again an issue, with Ben Chiarot’s goal on the record-setting Kane point its only five-on-five tally. While DeBrincat scored twice at six-on-five, the Red Wings’ power play went 0-for-4 for a second consecutive game.

“For me, the power play was where we lost a little gas, a little momentum,” McLellan said. “Early in the game, we could have gained momentum on it, we lost. Third period, when we were down, we could have gained some momentum, (but) we didn’t.”

For a team playing without one of its top-pair defenseman in Simon Edvinsson, there certainly are going to be some challenges in this stretch of the schedule. Up next, the Red Wings have two games against the Colorado Avalanche, the best team in the league thus far.

In many ways, however, these games are also a preview of what awaits Detroit in the season’s final stretch, as the Red Wings look to snap a nine-year playoff drought. Health is never a guarantee in the NHL, and as they’ve seen in the last two years, winning gets only harder in March — especially in a division race in which no rivals seem to be losing right now.

Still, for much of the night, it looked as if the Red Wings might come up entirely empty. Until the final minute, they were on track to lose consecutive regulation games for the first time since late November.

“I was proud of the way we played, proud of the way we responded after that first period,” Larkin said. “In years past, that’s a game that we would have crumbled in, and we didn’t. Even at 3-1, we still carried the play. … I was impressed with how we came out for the second, we took a regroup first intermission, came out for the second and started to play.”

There’s something to be said for that, as improved resilience has been a defining quality of this season. But to McLellan’s point, it’s one the group may be relying on too often of late.

For as wild and chaotic as Thursday’s game was, it’s just a taste of what they’ll have to weather as the season’s homestretch begins.