Was Philly actually mathematically eliminated here?
Is there not some scenario where Detroit is forced to pull their goalie in OT to win like Minnesota did and therefore risking an ENG against themselves and losing their OT point?
The scenario was something pretty close to this:
Philadelphia needed a win in regulation
and regulation losses by Detroit and Pittsburgh to get in. [Pittsburgh plays ... well, it's tonight now.]
Detroit needed a win
and a loss by Washington to get in,
or an OTL, a Washington regulation loss and a Pittsburgh loss. [Detroit lost the 1st tiebreak, it had to beat everyone outright on points.]
An argument might be
Detroit would have had to pull the goalie in OT to get the 2 points but it would have had to know that an OTL wasn't good enough. It didn't. It was playing ahead of the Washington game, so it had to get whatever result it needed, which meant "win the game, even if it's in the shootout."
Tortorella made the right call to pull the goalie either way. You can't fault him for that.
100% this. Don't blame Philadelphia for "screwing Detroit out of a playoff spot." Detroit had 54 other opportunities this season to improve its position in the standings such that it didn't go into Game 82 needing a win and then some help from others.
* It could have won any of the 32 games it lost in regulation, or dragged a couple of them to OT and picked up an OTL there. Or, dragged it past regulation and won it in OT or the shootout.
* It could have won a few of the 9 games it lost in OT or the shootout.
* It could have won in regulation more of the 40 games it had a W for going into last night, instead of just 27.
Own your failures instead of blaming someone else for it, especially when you had time to put success into your hands and you chose for whatever reasons not to take it.