Lord Stanley pays a visit, Canes win.

Friday was a very good day for me, and it was capped by the Canes defeating Tampa 5-4 in a thriller that went to shootout.

I was already a bit giddy because my playoff tickets arrived via FedEx on Thursday. I always get a little giddy on hockey night, but this one was a little extra special. Although there's one more home game, this was the last weekend home game, so they used this as fan appreciation night. As part of the festivities, we received a visit from the Stanley Cup. It was on display throughout the game, and was made available for us to take pictures of and with it. For this reason, I left town much earlier than usual, and got to the arena about an hour before puck drop. The line was moving pretty briskly, and I only had to wait about 35 minutes for my moment alone with the Cup. The picture here is the best of the six I had taken with my camera. It's a touch blurry, but I'm pretty happy with it. I'm very lucky in that this was my second time having a chance to pose with the Cup, and I'm hoping that there'll be yet another in the summer.

The game, which was the only NHL game on tap, went pretty much as expected. It was a barn burner. Tampa had more to play for than Carolina, but both teams played hard. That's not to say that there weren't mistakes. There were plenty by both teams, but they both played hard. Added to that, the near-capacity crowd was pretty loud, adding to the playoff-like atmosphere.

One very encouraging thing is that Carolina was extremely successful on the power play. They converted three of their seven chances. If this can continue heading into the playoffs, they'll be hard to beat. They also held Tampa to one of six on their power plays. Unfortunately, they also allowed one shorthanded goal.

In the shootout, Matt Cullen was the only player to "score". He didn't do anything fancy. He just skated right down the middle, waited till the very last second to make any move at all, and beat Sean Burke high on the blocker side.

The win means that Carolina has earned its 111th point. Ottawa has the same, but Carolina would win the tiebreaker for top seed in the East.

Meanwhile, the single point that Tampa gained will cushion its wah-fer theen lead for the eighth playoff spot in the East.

The same two teams will square off on Saturday night at 7:30.

EDIT as an added bonus, I was on teevee for a couple of seconds. Not like when we were in Washington, but we were on anyway.