RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning held a midday practice in North Carolina on Tuesday after evacuating Florida on Monday night ahead of Hurricane Milton.
The storm, which is moving across the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida late Wednesday or early Thursday, possibly with a direct impact on Tampa and St. Petersburg.
The Lightning face the Carolina Hurricanes in the season opener for both teams at Lenovo Center on Friday (7 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+, SNP).
“For us, there’s a bigger picture,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said after practice. “Like I told our guys, we've got to get away. There are a lot of people in our town who haven’t been able to get away. A lot of our thoughts are, 'OK, hopefully everybody is going to be OK. What can we do when we get back to help everybody out that wasn't afforded the ability to get out like we did?' ”
The two teams worked together to get the Lightning out of harm’s way.
“We have an ability to bring our families and loved ones and pets with us,” Cooper said. “You have to thank the Carolina Hurricanes for everything they did to help us and to continue our training camp here. You’ve got to love that about our league, that everybody is still in it together, even though we’re going to beat each other up in a couple days. They deserve a lot of credit.”
Tampa Bay practiced at the Hurricanes’ practice facility in nearby Morrisville, North Carolina.
“This is probably the best practice we’ve had all year,” Cooper said. “The guys were focused. I think we took care of a lot of the uncertainty of things these past couple days. (Senior director of team services) Ryan Belec did a heck of a job organizing us to make sure that we were all OK and we could focus on hockey. I think that translated to a really good work day today.”
