It has been a soggy couple of days in South Florida and the deluge of rain is affecting the flight plans of the Florida Panthers.
Florida will play Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the host Edmonton Oilers on Thursday at 8 p.m.
The Panthers planned to fly to Edmonton around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, but the weather has created massive cancellations out of both Miami and Fort Lauderdale international airports.
A number of team staff members were seen milling around the training facility in Fort Lauderdale instead of being at the airport with at least one player seen buying Stanley Cup Final souvenirs for family in the team shop.
The Panthers will fly today, just a little later than expected.
Captain Sasha Barkov Practices with Panthers on Wednesday
According to FlightAware.com, Fort Lauderdale was experiencing delays of 52 minutes on average for arriving flights with departure delays close to two hours.
Coach Paul Maurice spoke about his team’s travel plans following their practice at the IcePlex on Wednesday morning.
While the Edmonton Oilers flew home on Tuesday, the Panthers decided to give their players a day off at home and make the almost 6 hour flight northwest on Wednesday.
With a couple of days between games, the Panthers decided it was best for their players’ well being to stay home as long as possible.
Maurice explained that it is better for his team to get a full day of rest following Monday’s 4-1 win in Game 2 before flying.
He said he did not get back to his home in Fort Lauderdale after that game until after 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
As Maurice explained, Florida is staying at one of the hotels basically inside Rogers Center in Edmonton — so milling around a hotel an extra day is not something he wanted to do.
“There’s no party after the games,” Maurice said. “You come in, you do your work, you go home. … We didn’t like the idea of getting them up [Tuesday] early enough to get in at a reasonable time in Edmonton. We did not see a value in it.”
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