The Stages Of Overtime Hockey

Katie Baker on the Rangers-Caps Game 3 overtime battle and overtime hockey in general:

As with grief, there are many stages of overtime hockey. There is guilt: You knew you shouldn't have written that cocky Facebook post during intermission. There is bargaining: Just please clear the puck from the zone. I'll do anything! There is denial: Whatever, it's only Game 3, this isn't the end of the world. There is anger: I mean, this is hockey, so there's always anger.
And there is even acceptance, though it typically doesn't set in until deep into a third overtime period, when the teams have played for nearly twice as long as they were supposed to. Just let anyone win it, the acceptance phase goes. Just let anyone win it before there's a freak knee injury or some confidence-shattering mistake or — oh god Dan Girardi is bleeding and Ryan McDonagh may have just broken his hand just will anyone please score now!!!
The sports betting house Bovoda set the overtime over/under at 17.5 for the entirety of the playoffs, and it only took a few games into Round 2 until no. 18 had been hit. But Wednesday night's Rangers-Capitals game made all those prior outcomes, none of which went more than a few minutes into double OT, seem swift. It wasn't until 14:41 of the third overtime that Marian Gaborik buried a pass from Brad Richards to give the Rangers the 2-1 win and the 2-1 series edge.
The same part of the brain that makes you think that an adjacent lane of traffic is better or that you're always the one who has to get randomly patted down in airport security or that your iPod is plotting against you probably also believes that your hockey team never wins these sorts of games. But for the Rangers, this selective conclusion didn't take much selecting: New York hadn't earned an overtime victory in the playoffs since 2007. (And the last time they'd done it on the road was in 1997.)

I was impressed with the fact that the overtime over-under for the playoffs was eclipsed in the second round.  One of those times when the line is way off from reality.