Sharks-Golden Knights Game Postponed

Feb 25: The Sharks have released a statement on their future schedule:

As of Thursday afternoon, no additional tests have come back as confirmed positives. If the team and staff continue to receive negative results, the NHL and NHLPA have approved the team’s resumption of practice on Friday. In such event, Saturday’s game against the St. Louis Blues will move forward as scheduled. 

The San Jose Barracuda have also received no positive test results and are also scheduled to resume practicing on Friday, and will host the Ontario Reign on Saturday at Sharks Ice at San Jose. 

Tomas Hertl remained the only Sharks player on the COVID Protocol list today.

Feb 24: Tomorrow’s San Jose Sharks-Vegas Golden Knights game has been postponed after a Sharks player entered the COVID Protocols earlier today. The league will continue to analyze the test results of the rest of the team in the coming days. Further precautions:

As an appropriate precaution, 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 Sharks’ regular season schedule. The Sharks’ 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.

It appears as though the league is reacting more proactively when a player enters the protocol, as previously teams were allowed to continue playing games. Widespread transmission appeared to occur in those contests as both the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres had outbreaks, though that obviously can’t be confirmed. In this case, the two teams will not play.

The list of postponed games in the NHL continues to grow, with this being the 40th game that will need rescheduling. In fact, tomorrow’s game was actually a reschedule of an earlier game missed between the two teams. Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press reports that the AHL will also postpone tomorrow’s San Jose Barracuda game out of an abundance of caution.