The Tampa Bay Lightning announced Thursday that they postponed their dwelling opener in opposition to the Carolina Hurricanes at Amalie Area on Saturday.
There isn’t a make-up date for the sport but. The group evacuated from the city earlier this week forward of Hurricane Milton and can play its scheduled season-opener on the highway Friday at Carolina.
“Everyone’s minds aren’t in all probability the place they need to be,” head coach Jon Cooper told NHL.com’s Kurt Dusterberg on Thursday. “There’s so much happening at dwelling.”
The group famous that the postponement was as a result of Tampa Bay area recovering from the consequences of Milton, which, per the AP, has claimed no less than 5 lives and induced tens of millions of energy outages.
Notably, excessive winds tore Tropicana Field’s roof, dwelling to the Tampa Bay Rays baseball group and briefly the Lightning in 1993-96. The stadium was serving as a “base camp” for first responders.
“There’s lots of concern for everyone there,” Cooper added. “That’s our dwelling, and it’s going to be drastically totally different than after we left.”
Group captain Victor Hedman famous that the group should stay centered on Friday’s recreation and be delicate to the “robust day” for Floridians.
“It’s been a really aggravating two days, not realizing what’s going to occur,” Hedman stated. “It’s robust. We’re people. I’ve been there for 15 years and it’s been my dwelling. It’s robust to place that apart. However we’ve acquired to give attention to the sport tomorrow and hopefully get to go dwelling and assist out down there.”
Tampa Bay’s new dwelling opener is now scheduled for Oct. 15 in opposition to the Vancouver Canucks.
