Watch: Capitals claim playoff spot on empty-net goal as Red Wings get eliminated despite late heroics

The Capitals defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to clinch the second wild-card spot in the final game of the regular season for both teams.

Washington, which makes the playoffs for the ninth time in 10 seasons, will play the New York Rangers — the Eastern Conference's top seed and Presidents' Trophy winners — in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Flyers needed to win in regulation to have any chance of making the playoffs. With the score tied 1-1, Philadelphia coach John Tortorella pulled goalie Samuel Ersson with 3:10 left in the third period and the faceoff in the Washington end. But Nic Dowd chipped the puck out of the Capitals zone, and T.J. Oshie chased it down and shot the puck into the empty net from along the right-wing boards with three minutes remaining.

Alex Ovechkin also scored for the Capitals. It was his 31st goal and 853rd of his career, 41 short of all-time goal leader Wayne Gretzky, who has 894.

Washington's 91 points are the same amount as Detroit's final total. But the first tiebreaker is regulation wins and the Capitals have 32 to the Red Wings' 27.

Detroit, which beat the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 in a shootout at the Belle Centre in Montreal on Tuesday night, had its own short-lived, late-game heroics.

Before the contest ended in Philadelphia, David Perron scored with five seconds left in regulation to tie the game 4-4 for the Red Wings and send it into overtime. That temporarily kept them in the wild-card race.

But Washington's win literally made it a moot point.

Patrick Kane scored the only goal of the shootout to give Detroit a somber win.

This is the eighth straight season that the Red Wings have missed the playoffs after 25 consecutive postseason appearances.

Detroit finished the season with four games that all went into overtime. After losing to the Penguins 6-5 in OT last Thursday in Pittsburgh, the Red Wings defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs (Saturday in Toronto) and the Canadiens (Monday night in Detroit) by 5-4 scores in overtime.