POSTCARD: Lomberg checks in on eve of Stanley Cup Final

Hey Panthers fans,

It's become real pretty fast here.

Once we landed and got to the hotel here in Vegas, you could feel that things really started to ramp up. With media day going on here, we all know that we're in this now. It's just about getting a good night's sleep and hitting the ground running tomorrow in Game 1 against the Knights.

This whole experience is cool, no doubt. It's something as a kid that you always watched on TV, right? I remember always watching the Stanley Cup Final every year and knowing how important it was to everyone involved -- the players, the cities, the fans, the families. It's all still a bit surreal.

We're so close to it and so in the moment that you almost can't really understand the magnitude of it as you're going through it. We're just excited to grab the opportunity here. It's been tough to have so much time off here recently, but we have a great training staff that's kept us ready.

But as we started to get closer and closer to Game 1, it's only gotten more exciting.

The whole ride up until this point has already been amazing. It's been like a movie. It truly feels like everything is coming together at the right time. We're playing our best hockey right now. You hear people say that timing is everything, and it's crazy how everything has worked out so far.

I think one of the best parts about this run is that all of our fans are finally starting to get the recognition they deserve. From the second I came to South Florida, I realized our fans were so much better than people had given them credit for. For everyone to be under the microscope, for our fans to be buzzing around, it's cool to see. They deserve it because they do so much for us.

In my own neighborhood fans have been putting up signs all over their yards to show their support for the Panthers. It's cool. It reminds you that all of this is so much more important than just us. There's so many kids and families in that neighborhood that want to win so, so bad.

As bad as we want it, we know there's a lot of people out there that want it as well.

When we take the ice tomorrow, we all know that everything is different. But at the same time, I don't think it's going to feel different. For our group, we've never really looked too far ahead. It's been all about just living in the moment. It's about a single game, a single period and a single shift. We just want to get into our game plan as soon as we can and let the game happen from there.

Looking forward to tomorrow,

Ryan Lomberg

\As told to FloridaPanthers.com's Jameson Olive*