He florida panthers were delayed more than three hours while trying to fly to Edmonton for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday due to severe storms in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, area.
Their six-hour charter flight didn’t take off until 4:25 p.m. ET and was scheduled to arrive after 8 p.m. local time in Edmonton, about 22 hours before the series resumes at Rogers Place on Thursday.
A torrential storm caused the cancellation of more than 20 commercial flights from Fort Lauderdale International Airport on Wednesday. It also produced flood warnings across South Florida.
He nhl I scheduled two days off each time this Stanley Cup Final moved venues to help reduce the travel burden in a series that features the longest distance between cities in league history.
However, the Panthers elected to take Tuesday off and skated Wednesday morning at their home practice facility before traveling, rather than flying to Edmonton on Tuesday as the Oilers did.
“We didn’t like the idea of having them get up early enough (after Game 2) to arrive at a reasonable time in Edmonton,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice told reporters in Florida. “We didn’t see value in it.”
Thursday’s game will be the first his team has played outside the Eastern time zone since March 12 in Dallas.
Puck drop in Game 3 is scheduled for 6:20 pm local time.
The Oilers log considerably more mileage throughout the season and have already played playoff games in the Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern time zones this spring.
Still, his Tuesday charter flight home from Fort Lauderdale required a stop in Kansas City to refuel and was so long that the defenseman Matías Ekholm I had friends coming on a flight from Amsterdam that left around the same time and arrived in Edmonton before the one the Oilers took.
“I didn’t care,” Ekholm said Wednesday. “I was playing poker. “Time passed pretty quickly.”
Trailing 2-0 in the series, he and his teammates spent two nights in their own beds before playing Game 3 as the Panthers endured their travel woes.
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(Photo of Paul Maurice on the Panthers bench: Elsa/Getty Images)