It’s all the excitement of playoff hockey, without the fanfare of the playoffs. Especially for a team that was reserving tee times in mid-January last year.

Carolina enters the night with a two-point lead on Washington in the standings with three (actually 2 1/3) games left. They’re facing off right now. It’s like Game 5 with a 3-1 lead for the ‘Canes. Win and the Southeast Division and the #3 playoff seed that goes with it is theirs. Lose, and they can still clinch with one more win in their last two, but it’s no certainty.

It’s a lot like the Cup Final when Carolina won it all two years ago. A commanding lead going into Game 5, a game they blow on a bad turnover in overtime, followed by a clock-cleaning in Edmonton in Game 6, but fortunately followed up with a 3-1 win in Game 7 and jocularity ensued.

Even better for those of us that live outside the reach of Fox Sports South, the Canes cable network, they “couldn’t work a deal”, so Versus is showing non-playoff-bound St. Louis against not-yet-playoff-eligible Nashville.

Oh joy.

On the brightside, the fact that the game isn’t on TV is helping me get some work done and not sit through what is now a 3-1 deficit with 10 minutes and change remaining.