When the New York Islanders won four consecutive championships from 1980-83, the longest they went between hoisting the Stanley Cup and beginning a title defense was 141 days.
The Florida Panthers' shortest off-season came following their trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996, when they had 116 days before the 1996-97 opener.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying: Welcome, Islanders and Panthers, to the strangest and most surreal tournament in NHL history.
The seventh-seeded Islanders and 10th-seeded Panthers will begin their pursuit of the Stanley Cup on Saturday afternoon, when the two teams meet in the opener of a best-of-five Eastern Conference qualifying series in Toronto.