The Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild aren’t going to play tonight after all. According to several reports including Michael Russo of The Athletic, four more players from the Hurricanes have tested positive today for coronavirus and will be put into the COVID protocol. The team put Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho in the protocol yesterday. The league has officially announced the single postponement, noting that it will provide a further update tomorrow. The four players entering the protocol today are Jordan Staal, Andrei Svechnikov, Ian Cole, and Steven Lorentz.
If it weren’t postponed, the Hurricanes would be extremely shorthanded for this evening’s action. The team does not have the cap space for more than one recall, which they used on Andrew Poturalski earlier today. There is also a growing sentiment that on-ice transmission has occurred over the weekend, as several teams that played each other–Carolina, the Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, and Boston Bruins in particular–have now had players enter the protocol recently.
The Flames, Ottawa Senators, and New York Islanders are the three teams that have seen their season postponed to this point, but if the Hurricanes become the fourth, even more doubt will be placed upon NHL participation in the upcoming Olympics. The league has maintained that if postponements cause a “material disruption” to the schedule they will take the decision out of the players’ hands and withdraw from international competition.
This is also not the first time the Hurricanes have been affected by COVID absences. Brett Pesce, Tony DeAngelo, and Ethan Bear were all in the protocol at once, with the former two only expected to make their return tonight, before the game was postponed.
“The league has maintained that if postponements cause a “material disruption” to the schedule they will take the decision out of the players’ hands and withdraw from international competition.” Let’s hope! The various talking heads in the media are seemingly trying to do their part to ram the point home to players who haven’t really grasped the gravity of what *could* happen to them if they are declared COVID-positive in China.
@Gavin – A side effect of you guys having to report this is we get to go to NHL.com and see what the revised game schedule is, on almost an hourly basis.
Geez I hope they all don’t have the Delta Rewards Perks Plus variant….
So Tampa Bay can win a cup by being over the Cap but teams can’t go over to call up AHL players who are basically at league minimum salary to cover for vaccinated players who are on the COVID list? Makes sense…..
That was a crock of bullpucky!! Remove the option to circumvent the dap restriction like that. There’s got to be a better way of allowing for teams up against the cap and rules on players that would drive teams so far over the cap upon return to be on playoff rosters. Stacking the deck like TB did made it not even fun to watch.
Wait…that “vaccine” isn’t working after all…..weird.
You misunderstood what the current one does