Todd Reirden spoke to the media on Monday. The Capitals head coach talked about the precautions his family has taken due to his son’s immune system disorder as well as what he’s doing to relate with his players during the coronavirus pandemic.

Reirden also shared is thoughts behind how he’d like the 2019-20 season resume if it is at all possible. Alex Ovechkin recently shared that he’d like the playoffs to start immediately even if it’d deny him the opportunity to reach 50 goals again.

Todd had a more conservative idea.

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“If we are going to be playing hockey again this year, which I really hope we are, that means we’ve got this virus in a good spot,” Reirden began. “That’s the exciting thing. The health and safety of people is not being violated again. Now that means we’ll able to start getting back to real life and doing things how they’re intended to be done. Any sign of hockey will be a great thing to be a part of and back to being part of the dream and goal that our team had at the start of the year, to get that Stanley Cup back in DC.

“I think for me, ideally in a situation, If you can do it time-wise, play an abbreviated regular season and then go into a normal playoff situation would be the way that the league would like to have it done just with not compromising the integrity of the sport, making it fair. Finding a way that you can come up with a number of games that allows everybody to feel like it’s fair and have an equal chance and go into your normal playoff routine.”

Reirden mentioned he’s been going through his notes about how he’s approached past abrupt resumptions of seasons as a coach.

“It’s going to be interesting that’s for sure with how it’s going to work, because I just know in my own personal preparation of looking back at situations like this in 2012-13 when there was a lockout we didn’t play for a while, I’ve already looked at that training camp and planned for a training camp like that,” Reirden said. “There were six days and then we played our first game. The difference being that all the players were all on the ice. That’s the difference with our sport and making sure our players are not putting themselves in a situation where they can get injured. So it’s probably going to be really important to be able to have a situation where the players get on the ice and are able to play in intense situations but not have to worry about injuries. That’s all going to be fixed into an answer of how it’s all going to be worked out. Ideally, I’d like to see it as close to a normal playoff situation/regular season as we can do.”