TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jake Guentzel and Oliver Bjorkstrand scored two goals each, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves for his sixth shutout of the season, and the Tampa Bay Lightning routed the Utah Hockey Club 8-0 on Thursday night.

Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Gage Goncalves and Victor Hedman also scored for Tampa Bay, which won its second in a row and has won five of its last seven games. Kucherov also had three assists.

It was the fourth time this year Tampa Bay has scored eight goals in a game.

Utah starting goalie Karel Vejmelka — who had started 15 straight games — had a rough night, giving up four goals on 11 shots before being lifted after Kucherov made it 4-0 midway through the second period. He was replaced by Jaxson Stauber, who gave up four goals on 10 shots.

Takeaways

Mikhail Sergachev spent seven seasons with the Lightning, winning two Stanley Cups. He returned Thursday night as a member of the Utah Hockey Club for the first time.

Utah has now given up 13 goals in its last two games, including a 5-1 loss to Detroit on Monday, not a good sign for a team currently out of the playoff picture.

Key moment

Guentzel and Hedman got the Lightning off to a fast start. Guentzel opened the scoring at 1:30 of the first period with a backhander, and Hedman made it 2-0 at 4:20 on a snap shot.

Key stat

Guentzel’s second goal that made it 5-0 with 2:06 to play in the second period came on the power play and his 16 power-play goals this season leads the NHL. Point’s goal was the 300th of his NHL career.

Up next

Utah plays at the Florida Panthers on Friday night. The Lightning play host to the New York Islanders on Saturday.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

TAMPA. Fla. (AP) — Today the Rays and the Rockies open the 2025 regular season outdoors and in Steinbrenner Field the new one season home of the Rays, More than 3,000 unique signs and advertising boards have been installed. The 10-by-9 foot “Y-A-N-K-E-E-S” letters above the first- and third-base stands will have been covered with Rays markings, along with the interlocking “NY” hanging from the ceiling in the center of the clubhouse. The team store will have been emptied of pinstriped gear and restocked with Rays apparel.

A metamorphosis that even Statcast can’t measure.

“Building the plane while you fly it,” said Bill Walsh, the Rays’ chief business officer. “At times really, really exciting and at times obviously just incredibly frantic and stressful.”

Tampa Bay is one of two big league teams whose home games will be in minor league stadiums this year. The Athletics moved to Sutter Park in West Sacramento, California, for at least three seasons while a planned structure is built in Las Vegas

After playing indoors at the Trop in St. Petersburg since the franchise took the field in 1998, the Rays needed a rental after Hurricane Milton tore off the roof panels on Oct 9.

Concluding the ballpark couldn’t be repaired quickly, Tampa Bay found an office site near the Trop two weeks later and announced a deal on Nov. 14 to play 2025 home games at Steinbrenner Field, the open-air 11,026-capacity spring training base of the Yankees across the bay in Tampa. The site of any postseason homes games remains uncertain.

These temporary digs will feel like a player palace. A two-year renovation designed by Gensler and executed by Turner Construction Co. transformed the home clubhouse from motel quality to a Four Seasons.

A home clubhouse more lavish than most regular season facilities

Player and staff space doubled to 50,000 square feet. There is a two-story weight room with floor-to-ceiling windows and garage door, indoor and outdoor stretching areas, a Ping-Pong table, a barbershop, eight beds in a trainers area, massage rooms and a SwimEx along with hot and cold tubs with TVs at water level, a sauna red-light therapy and four batting cages. Each player locker has a safe along with USB and USB-C ports. There is a 70-seat meeting room, six private offices and 12 desks for additional staff.

A made-to-order open kitchen is near a 2,400-square foot picnic patio with 18 tables for dining and a long counter.

“I could totally see a wedding,” said Matt Ferry, the Yankees’ director of baseball operations.

Andy Pettitte, a former Yankees ace and now a spring training instructor, recalled how the food table was in a clubhouse corner near the showers when the stadium opened in 1996.

“It’s crazy it’s so beautiful,” Pettitte said after a dip in the cold tank. “When I came up, it was taboo to be in the trainers room.”

Steinbrenner Field’s regular-season team is the Yankees’ Class A Tampa Tarpons, who will dress a 1.2-mile drive away at the team’s minor league complex across Dale Mabry Highway and play home games on field two, a practice diamond behind Steinbrenner’s first-base side.

New York spent the last two offseasons renovating the home clubhouse.

“The industry owes Hal Steinbrenner a real debt of gratitude,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said of the Yankees owner. “He put literally tens of millions of dollars into improving Steinbrenner Field and the first people who are really going to get to use it for any period of time is the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Some reminders of Yankees will remain

George Steinbrenner’s statue and the retired numbers commemorating Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other Yankees greats near the entrance must remain untouched along with the late owner’s name above the videoboard.

All the other signage is set to change — the new ones would stretch a mile laid side to side. Five companies, 50 installers and at least 80 Rays staff will carry out the conversion.

A method will be found to cover the floor tiles leading to the clubhouse bathrooms that spell out: “The Bronx” and “New York.” It was unclear whether the Rays can cover wallpaper near the showers meant to create the illusion of scenery viewed from a speeding subway. While the clubhouse is set up for spring training with 51 stalls along the walls circling the room and 28 in the center spread into four pods, the Rays thought it might be too difficult to remove the unneeded spaces in the middle.

“We didn’t do as much branding as we wanted to do because the Rays are going to cover most of it,” Ferry said.

Yankees staff will remain in their fourth-floor offices, but the team will use the cramped visitors’ clubhouse on the third-base side when the Rays host New York from April 17-20 and Aug. 19-20. Extra construction is being funded by the Rays.

What had been the visitors trainers room was opened to the main part of the locker room and in the equivalent of musical chairs, the training tables moved to the baseball storage area. The umpires room became the manager’s office, which was remade into the clubhouse manager’s space, and umpires were moved to a trailer outside the ballpark. Max’s Cafe, which had been used for media meals, will be the visiting team’s food area.

A security room became the video review room and a humidor for baseballs was constructed off the tunnel circling between the dugouts. Tracking and replay technology was installed.

Seat inventory will change from Ticketmaster to Tickets.com but luxury suites will remain at the current 13. Food will be provided by Legends Hospitality, co-owned by the Yankees’ parent company, instead of Levy Restaurants, Tropicana Field’s concessionaire since 2018.

“We absolutely have kind of day by day, in some cases kind of hour by hour schedules for various installations,” said Walsh, who learned from the experience of shifting the team’s 2023 spring training site after damage in Port Charlotte caused by Hurricane Ian.

Storms are likely in the summer

Absence of a roof figures to be disruptive in an area that had a record 80.29 inches of rain last year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including 82% from June 1 through Oct. 15. The Tarpons had eight games delayed by rain either pregame or in-game plus four cancellations, three postponements, four suspended games and one that was shortened.

Tampa Bay’s schedule was adjusted to have 19 of its first 22 games at home and then 16 of 19 on the road from June 24 to July 13 and 19 of 22 from July 25 to Aug. 17.

“We’re going to be playing outdoor baseball in Tampa Bay for the first time ever during the regular season and people have been talking about this for decades,” Walsh said. “It’s kind of in our DNA to be a bit of an agitator and try to find opportunity sort of through challenges and through doing things differently. And this is certainly doing things differently.”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

STORY FROM RAYS PR – The Tampa Bay Rays have announced that the 2025 regular season home opener on Friday, March 28 against the Colorado Rockies is sold out. This marks the 19th consecutive season the Rays have sold out their home opener. The team is playing this season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. The 2025 season is presented by Orlando Health.

The game will be televised locally by FanDuel Sports Network, with first pitch slated for 4:10 p.m. Rays Radio will broadcast all 162 games on 95.3 WDAE/AM 620, the MLB app, SiriusXM and will stream each game for free on iHeartRadio. Rays Radio can also be heard in Spanish for all 162 games on WQBN 106.7 FM/1300 AM in Tampa Bay and on the MLB app.

Tickets are available for the remainder of the homestand against the Colorado Rockies (March 29 & 30) and Pittsburgh Pirates (March 31-April 2). Prior to the home opener, all fans will receive a Schedule Magnet, presented by Orlando Health.

On March 28, parking lots will open at 1:10 p.m., three hours before first pitch, and gates will open at 2:40 p.m., 90 minutes prior to first pitch.

A limited number of standing-room-only tickets will be made available for $20 for all Rays home games this season, including Opening Day. The Rays Rush Tickets will be released prior to each home series throughout the season, and fans will be notified by SMS message when they are available. Fans should sign up before noon on Wednesday, March 26 to receive the offer for the first series by texting RAYS to 42086. Message and data rates may apply. Text STOP to cancel or HELP for help. Up to 14 messages per week. No purchase necessary. Taxes and fees are included in the all-in price of $20 per ticket.

Single-game tickets for all Rays home games are on sale now. Tickets can be purchased exclusively through the MLB Ballpark app or online at RaysBaseball.com. Rays Season Memberships are also on sale and offer priority access to tickets, plus the flexibility to choose the games, number of tickets and seating locations. For more information, visit RaysBaseball.com/SeasonMembership