Hockey purists will be happy to see 5-on-5 overtime in the playoffs. The players might not be so thrilled – unless they really like mustard.
In the gold medal game of the men’s Olympic tournament in Milan, overtime lasted just 101 seconds. That was enough for Jack Hughes to cement his place in history while sending the U.S. to the top of the podium for the first time since 1980.
For Team USA’s Brady Tkachuk, that night in Italy delivered the biggest win of his career. But he still remembers coming out on the wrong end of a unique overtime experience during his youth-hockey days:
“This one tournament, I must have been eight years old, it was 5-on-5, and nobody scored. Four-on-four, nobody scored. It was the same for three-on-three and two-on-two. Then somebody on our team took a penalty, so it was 2-on-1, and I was out there. We got scored on pretty quick.
“Defense – not the specialty at a young age,” he chuckled wryly.
After the Olympics, fans lamented that the gold medal games hadn’t been decided at 5-on-5. But at the extremes, letting teams play at full strength can lead to difficult outcomes.
Last February, a Minnesota U-12 girls’ league needed three days to settle one game – and still turned to a shootout in the end. On a Monday night, with the score tied 1-1, the Cottage Grove Wolfpack played six 5-on-5 overtime periods against the St. Paul Saints before officials suspended the game at 10:45 p.m.
The next day, the teams played four more scoreless sudden-death stanzas before pausing again. The stakes got higher on Wednesday because the next round of the playoffs was scheduled to begin on Thursday. There was still no scoring in an 11th 5-on-5 overtime or a 12th 3-on-3. Finally, officials triggered the disdained shootout, where the Wolfpack prevailed after six rounds.
Brady Tkachuk and Mitch Marner (Amber Searls-Imagn Images)We have yet to see an NHL or PWHL playoff game stretch to the point where contingencies are required. But we have seen players skate for the equivalent of one or two extra games before a winner was declared.
The NHL’s longest overtime game happened nearly a century ago. On Mar. 24, 1936, fans at the Montreal Forum waited nine periods to see a goal. With 3:30 remaining in the sixth overtime, Mud Bruneteau gave the Detroit Red Wings a 1-0 win in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Montreal Maroons. The Wings went on to win their first Stanley Cup.
More recently, the Florida Panthers kicked off their sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2023 Eastern Conference final with a marathon that lasted five hours and 44 minutes. That culminated in Matthew Tkachuk’s walk-off goal with 13 seconds left in the fourth overtime, with the clock in Raleigh showing 1:54 a.m.
Tkachuk’s not so sure his desperation refuelling strategy helped him at all.
“Before the fourth overtime, myself, Josh Mahura and maybe Brandon Montour, we all chugged a Red Bull,” he said. “To this day, I don’t really know what our end game was – maybe we were trying to get a little bit more of a jolt? All it did was, it didn’t make me tired when the game ended.”
Adrenaline alone can keep players awake for hours after a big win. For some, that’s not an issue when the bus doesn’t depart for the team hotel until 3 a.m.
“I was sitting in front of the Staal brothers,” Tkachuk said. “I look back, and Marc is asleep. He’s totally asleep on a 10- or 15-minute drive back. That one took a lot out of us, but it definitely took more out of Carolina, not winning that game.”
It took the PWHL just two seasons to deliver its first four-OT clash, on May 11, 2025. The Montreal Victoire evened their first-round series against the Ottawa Charge when Catherine Dubois scored after 75:33 of overtime action in a game that stretched from 2:08 in the afternoon until 7:42 in the evening.
As the deadlock dragged on, the training staff for the visiting Charge sourced mustard packets from the Place Bell concessions, then taped them to the glass around the bench so the players would have easy access to the cramp-preventing condiment. That day, Ottawa’s Mannon McMahon skated 38:04 – fifth-most among the Charge forwards. With a laugh, she called the memory “triggering,” while reminiscing about her team’s unusual mission.
“You would think in those moments that everyone kind of tenses up,” she said. “But I remember walking into the dressing room in between one of the overtimes, and everyone has their legs up. There’s Coke, pickle juice and mustard, and everyone’s just laughing. It was such a funny vibe.”
McMahon restricted her mustard intake to intermissions. For her, that was enough to avoid the dreaded muscle cramps.
“I was like, ‘OK, if it’s going to help,’ ” she said. “I don’t even like mustard outside of that. I’m a ketchup girl.”
This article appeared in The Hockey News' Playoff Special 2026 issue.
Playoff Special 2026 provides an NHL power ranking, as well as features on Dallas Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen, the Buffalo Sabres being back in contention, the top 100 Rangers for the team's centennial season, and more.