With Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, the Florida Panthers are reportedly considering moving their training camp venue up to Springfield next week.

George Richards of the Miami Herald reported Wednesday that the Panthers have chartered a plane to take players, staff members and their families to Boston Friday in order to avoid the potentially destructive hurricane.

The Panthers organization will pay for the flight, with the team also weighing the possibility of opening training camp in Springfield -- home of its AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds.

Richards noted that the decision to move the Panthers' training camp up to Massachusetts will depend on extent of the damage in and around Broward County following the hurricane.

"We have the facilities in Springfield and could start camp there if we had to," Panthers CEO Matthew Caldwell told Richards. "We hope this is just a couple days up in Massachusetts and a flight home. But we don't know what's going to happen, don't know what we will sustain."

"We have a good mix of players going up there and they'll have great facilities in Boston. Hopefully everything works out here and we can fly them back in a few days."

A number of Panthers veterans are expected to make the trip up to Boston, including Vincent Trocheck, Sasha Barkov, Derek MacKenzie and Roberto Luongo.

Milton native Keith Yandle has already secured his own flight to Boston and will meet his teammates to coordinate workouts after the staff lands in Massachusetts on Friday, Richards added.

While the Panthers are up in Massachusetts, the team's home arena -- the BB&T Center -- will be used as a staging area for emergency equipment to deal with the fallout of Hurricane Irma.