On The Road: Game Day At Florida

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.
After beautiful weather followed the Avalanche during its first three days in Florida, the team experienced the wetter side of things on Saturday morning. A downpour went through the South Florida area, bringing the temperature comfortably down to the mid-60's.

The Avs began their second game day of this four-city trip as they usually do, with a morning skate. However, with the club practicing on Friday, head coach Jared Bednar made the pre-game skate-around optional.

About half of the players took the ice, doing drills with assistant coaches Ray Bennett and Nolan Pratt and goaltending coach Jussi Parkkila.

After the on-ice session, Bednar revealed that he will use the same lineup against the Panthers that he did two days earlier in Tampa. Colorado will use a non-traditional lineup of 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Semyon Varlamov making his third straight start in net.
When the Avalanche returned to its hotel following the skate for a pre-game meal and nap, the weather had cleared up, with even some sun rays peeking through the clouds.
Colorado had two buses depart for the BB&T Center for the evening's game, with the first one leaving at 4 p.m. and the second at 4:45 p.m.

Once the game began, Mikko Rantanen helped the Avalanche take a 1-0 lead midway through the first period by scoring off a rebound after the puck got blocked in front

The Panthers answered back with an outside shot at the end of the first period and then a breakaway goal in the second, but the Avs regained the lead with four straight markers. Erik Johnson ended up tallying the game-winner in his 400th game with Colorado, and the team added two empty-net goals to win 7-3.

Goaltender Semyon Varlamov made 39 saves, which included 19 stops in the third period.
Nearly two hours after the game ended, Colorado's charter flight took off from South Florida and headed up the eastern seaboard to Pittsburgh.

It's exactly a two-hour flight to eastern Pennsylvania, and while there is a little turbulence, the trip was overall quite smooth. A meal was served to the players before they either slept, watched movies, played games or conversed with one another for the remainder of the journey.
Upon landing in the third city of the road trip, the club experiences quite the temperature change as it was 28 degrees outside but felt like 19 when factoring in wind chill and humidity. It was 59 when the team's flight left Fort Lauderdale.

The Avs arrive at their downtown Pittsburgh hotel just after 2 a.m. and are greeted by a build-your-own, trail-mix station. Most of the players partake in the snack-building before grabbing their respective keys and heading to their rooms to get some rest.
Colorado doesn't have an on-ice practice scheduled for Sunday.