Hockey Thread 2021 Season

I'm intrigued. Tell me more

NEW YORK (Feb. 2, 2021) – The National Hockey League announced today that Buffalo Sabres games have been postponed at least through Feb. 8 as a result of two Players entering the NHL’s COVID Protocols. The decision was made by the League’s, NHLPA’s and Club’s medical groups, who determined that more caution was warranted while the League continues to analyze test results in the coming days.

The team’s training facilities have been closed, effective immediately, and will remain closed until further notice. The League is in the process of reviewing and revising the Sabres’ regular season schedule and it is expected that a decision on next week’s games will be made in the coming days. The Sabres’ organization has, and will continue to follow, all recommended guidelines aimed at protecting the health and safety of its Players, staff and community at large as set by the NHL, local, state and national agencies.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Don Waddell, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that goaltender Petr Mrazek has undergone surgery on his right thumb. A timetable for his return will be determined in the coming days.

Fuck Canada. Sorry John

from Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press,

The Winnipeg Jets were counting on a big assist from both the federal government and National Hockey League. Instead, the club has been given the cold shoulder and shut out, learning the hard way that cross-border trades during a global pandemic aren't as simple as they'd hoped.

And that has them silently stewing, believing they are victims of an uneven playing field that has put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Patrik Laine was given a hero's welcome as he landed on a private charter in Columbus after obtaining his work visa last weekend, greeted by a huge Finnish billboard and spending just 48 hours in COVID-19 protocol before getting the green light to make his Blue Jackets debut earlier this week. Jack Roslovic didn't have to wait at all to jump into the lineup of his hometown team, with four games already under his belt.

And Pierre-Luc Dubois? He's only met his new teammates through Zoom and hasn't touched a sheet of ice in the 13 days since the blockbuster deal went down. The 22-year-old Quebec product remains under mandatory lockdown here in Winnipeg and isn't eligible to emerge from quarantine until Friday night.


That will delay his first game with the Jets until they return to action next Tuesday in Calgary, and only if Dubois can quickly get up to speed after such a prolonged stretch away from the rink. By then, Roslovic and Laine will have skated for six and three games respectively. Dubois, meanwhile, will have watched Winnipeg play at least seven times without him.



Is that right? From a pure hockey perspective, absolutely not. But you'll forgive the folks in Ottawa if the wants of the Winnipeg Jets aren't very high on their priority list right now. They have bigger fish to fry than worrying about the number of days a multi-millionaire athlete has to wait before he can continue to play a game for a living.



And I'll happily take our country's way of handling COVID-19 over the debacle we've seen south of the border. Just look at the fact 18 NHL games have already been postponed involving U.S. teams barely three weeks into the season. New Jersey currently has more than a dozen players in protocol, while Minnesota and Buffalo are also dealing with outbreaks. Dallas, Carolina, Vegas and Washington have also been hit hard.


The Canadian Division is the only one of the four yet to be impacted. Coincidence? Hardly.



No, the real culprit in the Dubois quarantine saga is the NHL. They should have seen this coming and done something to address it before the puck dropped in mid-January. Instead, league officials were apparently content to take a "let's cross that bridge when we get there" approach — and it ended up backfiring in a big way here in Winnipeg.



When the trade was finalized on Jan. 23, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff firmly believed Dubois would only have to self-isolate for seven days upon his arrival in the city later that night. That's based on the fact the NHL had negotiated an agreement with the federal government under "national interest grounds" for a modified one week of quarantine, with strict conditions, for the recently completed training camps for all seven teams.



Dozens of players had flown into Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa from outside of Canada and were allowed to go back-and-forth from their residences to the rink once they had passed four COVID-19 tests over a seven-day stretch. It saved them the "inconvenience" of coming in prior to Christmas.

But for reasons that aren't clear, the NHL didn't get permission at the time for this exemption to carry over to the regular-season. The Jets, and the other six Canadian clubs, wrongly assumed it wouldn't be a problem and was but a mere formality.



After all, a player like Dubois was being tested every second day while playing in Columbus, and he flew on a private charter flight into Winnipeg. The chances of him bringing COVID-19 with him were slim. There was a lot more risk with all those players who flew in commercially from their off-season homes in late December for the start of training camps and only had to serve one week in isolation.



And yet, here we are. Even though Manitoba government and health officials signed off on the modified quarantine, that apparently wasn't enough to get it approved in Ottawa, at least not in time to apply to the Dubois case.



Which is where the NHL should have stepped in. One solution would have been ordering that players going from a Canadian to American team have to spend the same amount of time in isolation as those going the other way.

Otherwise we have situation like this, where teams are able to play by different sets of rules based on how seriously, or not, officials in their country happen to treat COVID-19. There'd be outrage if one team was allowed to have a second goaltender on the ice, or have a roster that exceeded the salary cap. Why should this be any different?



The Blue Jackets got to quickly inject a couple high-end players into their lineup to replace what they lost. The Jets have been forced to continue to play short-handed. Other than having Laine for the season-opener, they've been without him (three-game injury, then trade), Roslovic (never signed a new contract, remained in Columbus) and their replacement for the other nine games and counting.

After an extremely challenging day where five teams added more players to their COVID-Related Absences List and the Minnesota Wild were shut down until Feb. 9, the NHL made four changes to its in-arena protocols in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

The most noticeable to everyone watching will be the removal of all glass behind team benches. Clearly, the league is worried about air flow in that area, where contact is closest and lengthiest during games. The NHL isn’t waiting on that directive, asking it to be done in time for Thursday’s games.

Also:

• The NHL indicated it is considering asking teams to deploy portable air cleaners behind the benches, “in order to improve indoor air quality and mitigate airborne viral transmission.” These cleaners would use HEPA filters, which Consumers Reports magazine states “results in reductions of 50 per cent or higher in particulate matter.”

• Players and coaches are no longer permitted to arrive at the arena more than one hour and 45 minutes before puck drop. (The exception is for receiving necessary treatment of injuries.) All meetings — whether game day or not — should be virtually conducted.

Chris Johnston
@reporterchris
For what it's worth: NHL referees can still call "puck over the glass" penalties in instances where it's fired over the playing benches with glass removed. But they must be sure it would have cleared the previous glass level; otherwise, no call.

• Teams are being asked to utilize (or create) additional locker room space for themselves and their opponents, with the league looking to have at least six feet between players at each of their stalls. Teams have one week to communicate their plans for accomplishing this. (If necessary, portable stalls can be provided to teams.)

There is nothing yet about adding a second daily test — a rapid test — before games. All players are given a PCR test every morning. It is the most accurate and reliable of all COVID tests, but it takes longer to receive results. There are more and more calls behind the scenes to add them, but, to this point, they aren’t mandated.

This from Jets NHLPA rep Andrew Copp to Winnipeg reporters on protocols, specifically players not being able to arrive until 1:45 before game time.

I am confident this is going to be handled objectively... Right? Right???

I have been given exclusive access to the tool the NHL will be using to manage this
#nhlinsider

Did you get the Wuhan Flu?

Like Donairs! 

Wow, you are way too young for that. Blockage?

Yeah but you were 80 back then..............