Tampa Bay Lightning home opener vs. Carolina Hurricanes postponed amid Milton recovery

The Carolina Hurricanes will open their 2024-25 NHL season at home Friday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the second game of what was supposed to be a home-and-home opening weekend has been postponed.

According to the NHL, Saturday’s scheduled game at Amalie Arena in Tampa “has been postponed amid recovery efforts from the impact of Hurricane Milton.”

A makeup date will be announced as soon as it can be confirmed, the NHL said in a news release.

The Tampa Bay region of Florida was particularly hard hit this week when Hurricane Milton, which reached Category 5 status over open water, made landfall as a Category 3 storm, ripping across the Florida peninsula.

Residents and officials were still assessing the damage throughout the region Thursday, but Milton’s storm surge struck low-lying areas in and around Tampa and St. Petersburg hard Wednesday into Thursday. This latest storm came on the heels of Hurricane Helene’s impact just two weeks earlier in the same region.

The Lightning left Florida for Raleigh on Monday, canceling a final preseason game against Nashville. The team is staying in Chapel Hill after some hastily made reservations, and practiced Tuesday at Invisalign Arena in Morrisville.

The players were allowed to bring their families and pets with them to North Carolina, Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois said Tuesday. All of the staffers also made the extended trip, he said.

“It’s unfortunate what’s going on, right, but what I see out of the guys is it’s a burden being disrupted in what we’re doing but we have the ability to bring our families and loved ones and pets with us,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said Tuesday. “There is a bigger picture, as I told our guys. We got to get away. There are a lot of people at home who haven’t been able to get away, so a lot of our thoughts are that hopefully everybody is going to be OK and what can we do when we get back to help everybody out.”

This story was originally published October 10, 2024 at 2:53 PM.