The grizzled Detroit Red Wings forward Brad Richards could not recall any of his first 16 N.H.L. regular seasons ending quite like this: with his teammates gathered in front of a television in a road team’s dressing room waiting for an also-ran squad playing 215 miles away to polish off a blowout.

That team was the Ottawa Senators, who routed the Boston Bruins on Saturday to guarantee the Red Wings one of eight Eastern Conference berths in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Red Wings lost to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, 3-2, but that meant nothing.

Detroit (41-30-11) qualified for the playoffs for the 25th straight season, the longest current such streak in the N.H.L., and defenseman Danny DeKeyser acknowledged after Saturday’s game that during the last month the streak had been “in your head a little bit.”

But the Red Wings survived because Boston (42-31-9) stumbled badly against Ottawa at home, and Richards said his teammates were excited to make it, though far from exultant.