Rochester John Marshall and Red Wing, both undefeated in league play, faced off on Saturday with the conference title hanging in the balance. After 51 minutes of regulation, and eight more minutes of overtime, both teams will be able to claim a share of the Big Nine title after a 4-4 tie.

“That was a crazy game, man. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so satisfied and dissatisfied within a 20-minute period,” said Red Wing head coach Scott Haley. “Usually, when you pull the goalie and you get the goal, momentum goes to you. And I would say, if you looked at it statistically, the team that pulls the goalie and scores, wins 80 percent of the time…We had some really quality chances in (overtime).”

After taking a 2-1 lead into the first intermission, the Wingers were left fighting back as the game wound down. Reagan Haley scored 9 minutes, 2 seconds into the third period to tie the game 3-3, but JM’s Renee Saltness responded at 16:20 to put Red Wing in the deepest one-goal deficit one can imagine.

With 40 seconds to play, Haley pulled goaltender Ashley Corcoran, who made 39 saves, for an extra attacker. After an offensive-zone faceoff, the Wingers had several chances to beat Rockets goalie Melissa Zinser, but a mad scramble in front of the JM net was making things problematic.

With 20 seconds to go, a referee’s hand shot in the air while both teams tried desperately to get control of the loose puck. Perhaps it would have benefitted Red Wing to get the power play, or perhaps JM would have won a faceoff, cleared the zone and won the game. Either way, those chances would not happen as Maddy Hardyman saw a defender sitting on the ice with the puck between her legs. Hardyman took a good slap at the rubber, beating both the defenseman and the goalie with just two seconds on the clock. After a celebration worthy of a game-deciding goal, the two teams went to overtime.

The first chance in the extra period went to the Wingers after Saltness was called for a cross check. But Red Wing could not capitalize on the man advantage.

Next, it was the Rockets’ turn after Jenna Gillund went of for tripping. Again, good chances were not rewarded as a post and Corcoran kept JM off the board.

But the key to the game was the power play, specifically Red Wing’s inability to stop the Rockets.

Taylor Heise opened the scoring, unassisted, at 8:10 of the first period, followed by Hardyman slipping in a goal on a perfect Kayla Oberding pass from below the goal line at 13:46. And that’s when trouble appeared in the form of a 5-on-4 for JM.

Tori Thompson scored on a feed from Saltness just 12 seconds into a late-period power play. Then, just 2:42 into the second, Katie Montrose waited out Corcoran to find the net on a cross ice shot from the left slot to tied the game 2-2, a deadlock that lasted until 14:14 when Saltness put JM up for the first time.

“I thought they played a little more aggressive than we did,” Haley said. “I thought we had a couple better scoring chances, but it came down to two breakdowns on their power play goals. Our special teams killed us today. We didn’t execute. We didn’t score a power play goal and we gave up two. The (hard) part is we (spent) two weeks working on the power play, trying to shut down their very unique power play that they run.”

The two teams were evenly matched in penalties, with Red Wing committing five for 10 minutes, and JM six for 12.

But both teams were stymied in overtime. And a game that had so much emotion for nearly 60 minutes ended in a stalemate. Despite not carrying the momentum through to a victory, Haley said he was happy with the way the game turned out.

“I wouldn’t say (I’m letdown),” Haley said, “not being down with 40 seconds to go and getting a tie. I thought, ‘put a fork in us,’ at that point. I think we won two of the three periods, but they won big in the second.”

Unlike most teams, Red Wing (19-4-1, 13-0-1 Big Nine) will not get three days of practice heading into Wednesday’s first round of the playoffs. Instead, the Wingers will head to Oakdale to face Tartan (16-8-0, 9-4-0 Metro East) on Monday.

“We’ll kind of treat it like a postseason scrimmage,” Haley said. “For us, it will be an opportunity. It’s so hard, at this time of the year, to work on things in practice. So, yeah, we’ll roll three lines. We want to win, but it’s a great opportunity to work on special teams, mainly, and work on little things. Tartan is a pretty good team, so it will be another good game. Not that we don’t want to beat them by three or four, but hopefully it’s a close game, because we as coaches learn a ton. Our bench management has to be sharper, and we got a little sloppy in the second (against JM).”

Red Wing will learn its seeding in the Section 1A playoffs on Sunday. The seventh-ranked Wingers are the likely no. 1 seed, and could host any of three teams with Waseca and Albert Lea the likely opponents for Wednesday’s 7:30 p.m. puck drop.