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The Ottawa Senators were already on the ground in Steeltown before chaos hit the skies over the United States.
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The Senators dispensed with practice at the Canadian Tire Centre on Friday before flying to Pittsburgh, where they arrived at 2:30 p.m., ahead of a Saturday night game against the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena.
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The early-afternoon arrival meant the Senators’ Air Canada Jetz charter flight was already on the ground before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced at 3:54 p.m. that an outage was affecting air-traffic control centres, causing safety concerns, and declared a ground stop for almost all U.S. flights.
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The National Hockey League‘s head office in New York was in regular contact with the member clubs to keep them updated on the situation. While there were only two contests on Friday night — New York Rangers at Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators at Vegas Golden Knights — 28 of the 32 teams are to be in action on Saturday.
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The belief in league circles on Friday was that the Senators-Penguins contest would go ahead as planned, which meant on-ice officials were either already in Pittsburgh or would be able to get there. Stephen Hiff and Furman South were l