On The Road: Game Day In Tampa Bay

The Colorado Avalanche is on a four-game road trip on the east coast with games against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals.
ColoradoAvalanche.com is writing and taking photos of the trip.
It's game day in Tampa and the Colorado Avalanche players begin the day with a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading to the game rink for morning skate.

It is a quick bus trip from the hotel to the Tampa Bay Lightning's home rink, Amalie Arena-less than five minutes.
Given that fact, most of the team took the second bus to the arena for morning skate that left at 10 a.m. sharp. The first bus left 45 minutes earlier.
Morning skate was scheduled to begin 11:30 a.m., but the practice was a few minutes delayed as the players had to wait for the Zamboni to finish surfacing the ice.

The news of the day was that captain Gabriel Landeskog and Patrik Nemeth are both returning to the lineup. Landeskog is back after serving a four-game suspension, while Nemeth will make his first appearance since Nov. 5 at the New York Islanders.
Colorado will use an abnormal lineup versus Tampa Bay, dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Gabriel Bourque, Duncan Siemens and Nail Yakupov will be scratched.

After going back to the hotel for a pre-game meal and nap, the Avs return to the nearby Amalie Arena for the game time.

Among their pre-game activities includes a little two-touch soccer game.

While most of the people in the arena wore blue and white for the home team, there were a few that donned burgundy and blue for the Avalanche. Among those were Dave and Eileen, who made the trip from Colorado to watch the team play two games in Florida.

The Avalanche opened the scoring just 1:21 into the game as Landeskog scored on a backhand shot after a drive to the net.
Tampa Bay responded however and eventually took a 5-2 victory. Erik Johnson also tallied for Colorado and goaltender Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves.

After the game, the club packed up and headed to the airport for its next stop on the trip.
One hour and 40 minutes after the game's final horn sounded, the team's charter flight departed Tampa and heads across the state to Fort Lauderdale.
The Avs' plane landed on the east side of the Florida peninsula at 12:30 a.m., and the squad immediately gathered its belongings and loaded up onto two team buses. Colorado arrived at its hotel just after 1 a.m., allowing the players plenty of time to get some rest before Friday's practice.