There are probably a lot of tired people at work on Friday in both Carolina and Florida after Thursday night's Game 1 ended at 1:54 a.m. ET — and the official Panthers Twitter account is doing all they can to help people account for their likely late arrival to the workplace.

By order of the Florida Panthers:

It's a hilarious move by the team's social media strategizers, after it was a late bedtime for hardcore hockey fans on the East coast. For reference, the game began at 8:10 p.m. ET and didn't end until almost six hours later.

It was the sixth longest game in NHL postseason history, finally ending with just 12.7 seconds left in the fourth overtime stanza by a Matthew Tkachuk snipe.

“Both teams spent what they had,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said after 2 a.m. ET on Thursday. “That's a huge cost for both teams, and then it's a race to recover.”

Carolina and Florida are in the recovery stage as of early Friday afternoon, and both teams are probably just happy that a 4OT marathon didn't happen in Game 2, when afterwards they would have to travel between Raleigh, NC and Sunrise, FL.

The total elapsed game time was 139 minutes and 47 seconds; the longest playoff game in the history of the Cats and Canes as of May, 2023.

“I thought it was a [heck] of a battle,” Hurricanes center Jordan Staal said about the grind. “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.”

Hopefully some fans in both states will get to go home from work early on Friday, and will be ready for another thrilling affair between these two excellent hockey teams on Saturday night at PNC Arena.