12:00pm: The league has officially postponed the Hurricanes’ next two games. They have also released the following statement:
As an appropriate precaution, the team’s training facilities have been closed, effective immediately, and will remain closed for Players until further notice. The League is in the process of reviewing and revising the Hurricanes’ regular season schedule. The Hurricanes 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.
9:55am: The Carolina Hurricanes did not play last night due to several key players testing positive for COVID-19, the second half of a two-game series with the Nashville Predators postponed indefinitely. Now, Luke DeCock of the Raleigh News & Observer reports that the team’s next two games will also be postponed. Though the league has not announced it officially, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic has also heard this possibility, meaning the Florida Panthers won’t be coming in for games tomorrow and Saturday.
The Panthers of course already saw their schedule changed when the Dallas Stars had a training camp outbreak, leading to the postponement of several early-season games. Florida has only played twice and now will likely have to wait until next Tuesday, Jan 26 to continue their 56-game campaign.
Jordan Staal, who tested positive last week, was joined by Warren Foegele, Jordan Martinook, Jaccob Slavin, and Teuvo Teravainen on yesterday’s COVID Protocol Related Absences list. Staal remains in Detroit isolating where his test was taken, while the other four have been left in Nashville for the time being.
Whether the Hurricanes will be able to resume their season in time for the Tampa Bay series next week is not clear at this point.
here we go!
What happened to the taxi squad? Or are they all on waivers?
I can’t write what I think of it. But it would bring a laugh.
@Dave – Maybe they all took John Lu’s new moniker to heart and are now on the “Taco Squad!” I think I hear crunching nearby… :)
And, with the seemingly daily news of postponements, I spent a few minutes yesterday trying to find the NHL’s official stance on makeup games. Minutes wasted. Today on Leafs Lunch, Dave Feschuk had also asked the same thing, and stated that after consulting with (I believe) Frank Seravalli, found what I did. Apparently the league is going to just play it by ear. Which seems to mean, that if push comes to shove, they might be forced to have teams finish a season with less than 56 games played and use points percentage. So, if they find themselves out of runway, we could see teams get in to the playoffs that way. I’d love to know if @Gavin & co. have heard or seen anything different.
There is a little time built into the end of the schedule to fit makeup games in, the regular season has already been extended a day for one of Dallas’ games.
While as you say, there is very little official information, the stance is to squeeze games in if possible to avoid any teams playing fewer than 56. It has some speculating that the 3-in-3 that the AHL does may even be a possibility, though they’ll try to avoid that at all costs.
@Gavin – That’s pretty much what I had found, too. I’d love to see the looks on some players/coaches faces when they get the 3-in-3 news, should it come to that.
As a Panthers fan this has been an extremely frustrating start to the season. Happy we’ve won both games at least.