Rod Brind'Amour's Carolina Hurricanes were on the wrong end of a marathon, over-five-hour Game 1 against the Florida Panthers on Thursday night — and the 52-year-old admitted it wasn't the way he had hoped the Eastern Conference Final would start.

“Listen, it's the worst way to lose,” Brind'Amour explained just after 2 a.m. ET on Thursday night, per NHL.com's Tom Gulitti. “There's no way around it. But we'll regroup and come back at it the next one. It's just one game.”

Regardless of who lost the game, it was going to be a devastating result. Both teams poured everything into Game 1, in a contest that went over two times the length of a regulation time NHL affair.

Five players were on the ice for more than 50 minutes, an outrageous TOI headlined by Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour at 57:56 and Hurricanes D-man Brent Burns at 54:33.

Carolina finished with 145 shot attempts and blocked 39 shots, while Florida had 125 shot attempts and blocked 38 shots, per Gulitti.

“I thought it was a [heck] of a battle,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It's going to be like that every game against that team. That's playoff hockey. I'm not surprised that's the way it looked out there. We'll have to regroup and take it to the next game.”

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Both goaltenders were absolutely fabulous, with Serbei Bobrovsky and Frederik Andersen shutting the door from early in the third period onwards as the 2-2 tie stretched on and on.

“[Bobrovsky] was good, but so was Freddie,” Hurricanes forward Martin Necas said. “Both goalies played great. We've got to get a little more in, shoot a little bit more with traffic, get the pucks through. Both goalies played great. They got a nice goal at the end there.”

For hockey fans, you couldn't have asked for a better show in a conference finals opener than the one Florida and Carolina put on on Thursday.

Game 2 is set for Saturday night between Rod Brind'Amour's Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers at PNC Arena in Raleigh.