"Win enough — maybe even a shootout or two, eh? — to call yourselves division champions.

"You can sit there and hope for one team or another to win on a given night," Panthers coach Kevin Dineen said Tuesday, "but really, for me, it's about taking care of your own business."

Follow that Bachman-Turnover Overdrive appoach within the division over these next 9 1/2 weeks and the NHL's longest playoff drought will finally end after a dozen embarrassing years.

That 34-game sprint to the finish line starts tonight at the Bank Atlantic Center against the Capitals, who come in holding the tiebreaker over the Panthers atop the Southleast Division."