The Red Wings season comes to a close in the worst possible way

Detroit Red Wings play-by-play announcer Ken Daniels has often called this group the 'cardiac kids' for their late-game heroics. The phrase once again proved fitting on Tuesday night in Montreal, with Detroit's backs against the wall in the final game of the regular season.

Like they do far too often, the Red Wings found themselves trailing heading into the third period. Alex Newhook opened the scoring, finishing off a nice two-on-one with Brendan Gallagher. Moritz Seider tied the game late in the first period with a blast from the point that redirected off a Montreal stick and past goaltender Cayden Primeau, a Farmington Hills native. Primeau, a seventh-round draft selection of Montreal back in the 2017 NHL Entry Level Draft, is the son of former Red Wings forward Keith Primeau.

The Habs quickly jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the second period thanks to goals from Gallagher and Cole Caufield. The Gallagher goal, like the first Montreal marker, was a two-on-one, leaving James Reimer little to no chance. The Caufield goal came after Nick Suzuki dangled Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond on the half wall, and Juraj Slafkovsky took a rip from the right hash. Despite a massive save by Reimer, Caufield found the rebound out front and buried it. Moments after Caufield gave Montreal a two-goal lead, Joe Veleno recorded his 12th goal of the season.

Detroit tied things up in the third period as they received their second goal of the night from their fourth line. Daniel Sprong found twine after a very effective shift from that unit, which also included Veleno and Austin Czarnik.

Slafkovsky provided what felt like the dagger with roughly eight minutes left in regulation after a very controversial non-call by the officials. Just before the go-ahead goal, David Perron was shoved into Primeau. The two were tangled lying in the net as the Canadiens skated the other way with a lengthy five-on-four opportunity, and eventually, Slafkovsky made it count. At the very least, the play should have been blown dead, but there should have been a tripping or interference call on the play for pushing Perron from behind into the net. There is no way that the officials would have allowed the play to go on if Detroit had the puck and was about to have a scoring chance with the goalie taken out and a pileup inside the net.

The Detroit Red Wings battle back again to beat Montreal, but it's all for not

But tweaking Rasheed Wallace's statement of 'ball don't lie.' Perron had some redemption as he scored the game-tying goal with a mere 3 seconds left in the third period. I say, the puck don't lie. The Detroit Red Wings would go on to beat Montreal 5-4 in a shootout thanks to a Patrick Kane winner, but it was all for not. I need to add this: James Reimer was absolutely fantastic in this game, making save after save, a few of which should be on SportsCenter, especially his blocker save below on Caufield.

To advance into the postseason, the Detroit Red Wings needed to beat Montreal and Washington to gain a point or less in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, there was a blown call in the Flyers game, which took a Philly goal off the board.

Also, the Flyers needed a regulation win and a Detroit loss to stay alive so they elected to pull their goalie with three or so minutes left in a 1-1 game and in gutting fashion to Red Wings fans, the Capitals hit the empty net which would go onto being the game winner. Again, a non-regulation win did nothing for the Flyers, so we can't blame them for trying to win it in regulation. It's just a rough way to miss the playoffs.

We'll have more on this in the coming days, but the fact of the matter is the Detroit Red Wings finished the regular season going 8-15. It's hard to justify a playoff position going 8-15 down the stretch. That disappointing record will overshadow the fact that Detroit did obtain 7 of their final 8 points, putting them back into the hunt, only to have our emotions crushed on the season's final day.