A goaltender from Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley made 86 saves in a playoff hockey game that went into five overtime periods and dragged on so long it started Sunday night and lasted into early Monday morning.

Cole McLaren, 17, of the Valley Wildcats made 49 of his saves in overtime but his team lost the game 2-1.

"In the moment you say to yourself, 'That's just another save.' But then you look up at the score clock and it says you've made 74 saves and you're in quadruple overtime," said McLaren.

"When I woke up the next day and saw it on social media, I thought to myself, 'Wow that's a lot of shots.'"

The Valley Wildcats and Halifax McDonald's were playing Game 4 of their Nova Scotia Major Midget Hockey League quarter-final series at the Kings Mutual Century Centre in Berwick.

137 minutes of hockey

The game started at 7 p.m. on Sunday and ended at 12:20 a.m. on Monday.

The teams slugged it out for 137 minutes of hockey — the equivalent of more than two regulation games.

It made for a lot of weary bodies dragging themselves off to school on Monday.

"I was sore and when I woke up I just hurt everywhere," said McLaren, an eighth round draft choice last year of the Halifax Mooseheads. "It was a struggle to get out of bed for sure."

'The entire team was totally bagged'

Halifax defenceman Josh Nicholson scored the game winning goal in quintuple overtime on a slap shot from the blue line that went through a maze of players.

The Halifax McDonald's won the game 2-1 after going into quintuple overtime. After celebrating, many just lay down on the ice. (Submitted)

"We all just skated to centre ice and celebrated and then pretty much just laid down on the ice," said Halifax goalie Dakota Lund-Cornish. "The entire team was totally bagged."

Lund-Cornish shone for Halifax. The Upper Tantallon goalie stopped 59 of the 60 shots he faced in the marathon.

"Some of our parents went out to a local convenience store that was open after the second overtime period to get some Gatorade and bananas and stuff like that," he said.

'It's disappointing we didn't come out with a win'

Both goalies were also outstanding in Game 3 on Saturday night. Lund-Cornish had a shutout and McLaren, a Grade 11 student at Annapolis West Education Centre, made 49 saves in a game Halifax won 1-0 on a goal in the first overtime period. In the two weekend losses, McLaren stopped 135 of 138 shots.

"It's disappointing we didn't come out with a win," said McLaren. "Putting in so much time and effort into that game and not getting the win, it definitely hurts."

After the Game 4 marathon many of the Halifax players didn't get home until after 2:30 a.m.

But there's no time to rest for either team as Game 5 in the series is scheduled for Tuesday night in Halifax. Halifax is up three games to one in the series.