The NHL is facing a growing crisis with COVID-19 and there’s nothing that illustrates it more than Thursday’s Avalanche-Predators game.
The Avs, who were already without five players due to injury, had two players enter protocol right before puck drop, JT Compher and Devon Toews.
The team was then posed an interesting question by the NHL.
Evgeny Kuznetsov is off to one of the best starts of his career, tallying 30 points (9g, 21a) in the Capitals’ first 28 games. Now he’ll have to sit out for an unknown period of time due to COVID-19.
Wednesday afternoon, the Capitals PR announced that Kuzy had entered the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.
By Ian Oland 1 year ago
Tuesday marked a watershed moment in the NHL with COVID-19. Twenty-four players (that we know of) ended up in protocol, multiple games were postponed, and players are seriously reconsidering Olympic participation.
The NHL does not make the specific, exact number of positive cases available on its media site anymore so it is difficult to pinpoint if the current bad situation is actually worse. There seems to be a new team announcing unavailable players due to COVID every other hour so it’s clearly a very fluid and ongoing problem.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan spoke to league officials who say there have been no discussions about pausing the season due to COVID cases.
According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, doctors from the NHL and NHLPA are however having a call tonight to discuss the latest COVID outbreaks and the potential need to enhance protocols.
By Chris Cerullo 1 year ago
The Washington Capitals appear to be dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak on their team.
Monday, Garnet Hathaway became the latest Capitals player to enter the COVID protocol and will miss an indeterminate amount of time.
By Ian Oland 1 year ago
Washington Capitals center Lars Eller tested positive for COVID-19 while the team was on their West Coast road trip in mid-November. The virus left Eller stranded in Anaheim, California, for over a week as he had to quarantine in a hotel room before being able to return to DC.
The fully vaccinated Eller made the most of his time by getting in some workouts, reading Mark Messier’s book, and binging movies and TV shows.
By Chris Cerullo 1 year ago
Sidney Crosby made his season debut on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils after offseason wrist surgery caused him to miss the Penguins’ first seven games.
Now he’s out again.
Wednesday, Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan announced Crosby has COVID-19 along with Brian Dumoulin.
By Ian Oland 1 year ago
The NHL’s struggles with coronavirus aren’t over yet. After a month-long lull, COVID is now ravaging one team in particular: the Vancouver Canucks.
On Saturday, the NHL announced that fourteen Canucks players are on the “unavailable due to COVID protocol” list.
By Peter Hassett 2 years ago
On Wednesday, the NHL had two fun announcements.
The first announcement was that the Minnesota Wild were shutting down for a week due to a COVID outbreak, joining five other teams who added to their COVID-releated abscences list.
The second announcement was that the Nashville Predators are super psyched to welcome fans back to their arena this month.
If you’re feeling the dissonance there, get ready for this next part.
By Peter Hassett 2 years ago
As you are most likely very well aware, the NHL has fined the Washington Capitals $100,000 for player violations of the league’s COVID‑19 Protocols. We then got the news minutes later that more specifically, the Caps Russian quartet of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov, and Ilya Samsonov is now unavailable due to these supposed violations.
So, what’s next for the Caps lineup and what options do they have if these guys have to miss a game(s).
By Chris Cerullo 2 years ago
Here is a story that I’ve put off as long as I could. The short version is that Alex Ovechkin has been unfairly deprived of almost 100 goals. The long version is longer, and it has graphs in it.
By Peter Hassett 2 years ago
