Auston Matthews Tests Positive For COVID-19
Earlier today, reports surfaced that Tampa Bay wasn’t the only team that had a player test positive for COVID-19. It appears that is indeed the case as Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun reports that Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews has tested positive for the virus and has gone into quarantine at his home in Arizona. The team later released the following statement:
Per the National Hockey League protocol with respect to COVID-19, the Toronto Maple Leafs will not be commenting on reports surrounds testing for any of the club’s players or staff. A person’s medical information in this regard is private. The club will defer to the NHL’s policy on handling the disclosure of positive tests results, in that the league will provide updates on a regular basis with aggregate totals of the numbers of tests conducted and number of positive tests reported without disclosing either the identities of affected clubs or players.
Simmons notes that Matthews has been skating with several Coyotes players, some of which have tested positive as well although the names of those have not yet been released. Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen had been living with Matthews for part of this extended break in the schedule but is no longer in Arizona; Simmons adds that he has not tested positive.
There has been a spike in positive COVID-19 tests in several states in recent days and while NHL teams are able to resume training, there are no quarantine restrictions in place at this time as there will be if play resumes as planned later this summer.
Lightning Close Facilities Due To Positive COVID-19 Tests
3:08 PM: Lightning GM Julien BriseBois released the following statement through Twitter concerning the positive tests:
We have learned that three players and additional staff members have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Those players have been self-isolated following CDC protocals and are asymptomatic other than a few cases of low-grade fever. Those who have been in contact with these individuals have been notified. The Lightning continue testing and are strictly following all NHL and government procedures as part of the league’s Phase 2 guidelines. Upon receiving positive tests yesterday, team training facilities were immediately closed with all players and staff being sent home. Those facilities will remain temporarily shut down until we can ensure a safe environment.
12:16 PM: While NHL facilities are open as part of the second phase of the NHL’s Return to Play plan, at least one will be shut down temporarily. TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports (all Twitter links) that three Lightning players and two staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. The expectation is that if all other players and staff test negative, the facility will re-open in the near future although Diana C. Nearhos of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Amalie Arena (where the team was skating) will be closed to non-essential staff until July 6th.
The identities of the players and staff were not identified. As McKenzie noted in an Insider Trading appearance on Thursday, that information is unlikely to be made available. The NHL (in conjunction with the NHLPA) appears to be shifting towards the approach of the NBA where an announcement will simply be made that someone tested positive without making any other type of identification. To that end, Joe Smith, Michael Russo, and Craig Custance of The Athletic report (subscription required) that there are other positive cases around the league at the moment that have not been announced.
It’s worth noting that at this stage in the process, the skates are voluntary and as such, there is no league-mandated quarantine in place. The expectation remains that if play resumes (likely in early August), there will be a full quarantine for both hub cities.
While one set of positive tests at this stage isn’t going to cause a significant setback, it certainly serves as a sobering reminder that there is still a long way to go towards a safe and healthy resumption of play as the pandemic continues on.
Sabres Fire GM Jason Botterill
The Buffalo Sabres have relieved General Manager Jason Botterill of his duties after three years in the role, per a team release. Senior Vice President of Business Administration Kevyn Adams will take over as Botterill’s permanent replacement.
The move comes as a bit of a surprise as we’re just three weeks removed from ownership announcing a plan to keep Botterill in his role. Botterill joined the Sabres as a respected hockey mind from the Penguins organization.
Sabres’ owners Terry and Kim Pegula released a statement this morning with the news, reasoning the change thusly: “This morning, we informed Jason Botterill he will no longer be the General Manager of the Sabres. This decision was made after many candid discussions with Jason during a full review of our hockey operation. We recognized we have philosophical differences regarding how best to put ourselves in a position to compete for a Stanley Cup. So, we decided to make this change.”
The statement goes on to thank Botterill for his time with the Sabres. During his three years span, Botterill signed star Jack Eichel to a long-term contract (8-years, $80MM), but the Sabres failed to finish higher than 6th in the Atlantic Division. This season, they finished 25th overall, just one spot out of the 24-team playoff. They haven’t reached the postseason since the 2010-2011 season – the longest active postseason drought in the NHL.
More changes could be afoot for the Sabres, as Botterill’s firing did not happen in a vacuum. Wholesale changes are being made to the Sabres’ hockey operations department. Assistant GM Randy Sexton as also let go by the club, per the Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun. Steve Greeley was another casualty, tweets Frank Seravalli of TSN Sports, though Seravalli thinks Greeley and Sexton should have no trouble catching on with another organization.
Training Camps Will Open July 10th
As the NHL tries to work its way towards resuming play, they have come to an agreement on when training camps will begin. The league announced that those camps will begin on Friday, July 10th after reaching an agreement with the NHLPA. The full release is as follows:
The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) announced today that formal training camps (Phase 3) for the 24 teams resuming play will open on Friday, July 10, provided that medical and safety conditions allow and the parties have reached an overall agreement on resuming play. The length of training camp and, therefore, the start date for formal resumption of play (Phase 4) will be determined at a future date.
Recently, teams were allowed to open their practice facilities although not all of them have taken advantage of that so far. Some are in the process of getting their rinks compliant with new safety protocols while others have encouraged their players to remain where they are outside of the club city as long as they’re able to skate and work out.
While no set date for the resumption of play (the play-in round to the playoffs plus the round robin for the top four teams in each conference) has been set, it’s likely that a few weeks will be needed in order to get players back into playing shape, lines and strategies set, and perhaps even an exhibition game or two to work off the rust. With that in mind, today’s news suggests that play will resume in early August if agreements can be reached with the NHLPA on all of the return protocols and that it is medically safe to do so.
NHL Announces Details On Return To Play Format
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman today explained how exactly the 24-team return to play format will work, a proposal that was submitted to and approved by the NHLPA executive board over the weekend.
First and foremost was the announcement that the 2019-20 regular season is officially over. There will be no more regular season games, meaning that Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl is the 2020 Art Ross winner as leading scorer.
Should the league return this summer, there will be 24-team postseason held in two hub cities. In early June, the league hopes to move to Phase 2 of small group workouts. Phase 3, which is a three-week training camp, is expected to start in early July.
The hub locations that are still in consideration are Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vancouver. The final determination will come later.
The top four teams in each conference will play a round-robin to determine seeding for the playoffs. The other teams in each conference will be matched up in a qualifying round. Neither of these rounds are technically considered the playoffs, but are also not the regular season. The qualifying matchups are as follows:
- 5. Pittsburgh vs. 12. Montreal
6. Carolina vs. 11. Rangers
7. Islanders vs. 10. Florida
8. Toronto vs. 9. Columbus - 5. Edmonton vs. 12. Chicago
6. Nashville vs. 11. Arizona
7. Vancouver vs. 10. Minnesota
8. Calgary vs. 9. Winnipeg
The league has not yet determined whether or not they will reseed after each round or use a bracket system throughout the playoffs.
The NHL Draft Lottery will be held in one or two phases and is quite a bit more complicated than in year’s past. It will be held on June 26th and include the seven eliminated teams—Detroit, Ottawa, San Jose (owned by Ottawa), Los Angeles, Anaheim, New Jersey and Buffalo—along with eight placeholders for the teams who will be eliminated in the qualifying round. Those 15 slots will have the same odds as previous years.
Should one of the bottom seven teams win the first, second or third pick, they will be awarded it. If those any of those picks are won by a placeholder, there will be a second lottery held after the qualifying round is over to determine which eliminated team is awarded it. Once those two lotteries are completed, the remaining 12 spots will be assigned in inverse order of their regular season points percentage.
The 2020 NHL Entry Draft will take place after the conclusion of the 2019-20 playoffs.
It is important to note that though this will be the format should the NHL resume, that is not yet a guarantee. As Devan Dubnyk of the Minnesota Wild explained recently to Michael Russo of The Athletic (subscription required), there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome just to get teams into their hub cities.
NHLPA Votes To Proceed With Discussions On 24-Team Playoff Format
There is now some momentum towards the NHL resuming play at some point over the next couple of months. Late Friday night, the NHLPA announced that they voted to proceed with discussions on the 24-team playoff format that was proposed by the league. Their full statement was as follows:
The Executive Board of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) has authorized further negotiations with the NHL on a 24-team return to play format to determine the winner of the 2020 Stanley Cup. Several details remain to be negotiated and an agreement on the format would still be subject to the parties reaching agreement on all issues relevant to resuming play.
TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie notes (Twitter link) that the vote wound up being quite close to unanimous with only two of the 31 player reps voting no.
Under this format, the top four seeds in each conference would each get a bye through the play-in round which would see the other 16 teams play a best-of-five series to whittle the field down to a usual 16. However, as Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston notes, the exact format hasn’t been ratified. The league would like to use a bracketed system while the players seem to prefer a system with re-seeding after each round. A decision also has to be made on whether or not the round robin games that the top four teams will play to stay in shape will determine seeding or if they will just be to get them in playing shape. After such a long layoff, that will be an interesting call to make to see if they’re just glorified exhibition games or if they’ll have a lot of importance.
The vote to move ahead from the NHLPA doesn’t come as much of a surprise as there had been some momentum in these talks in recent days. While the 24-team format isn’t the most popular with all players or teams, it does allow them to recoup some extra lost revenue as well as solve any concerns about bubble teams not getting a chance to wrap up the regular season and push for a spot in a standard 16-team format.
While this is an important and notable step towards games resuming, there is a lot that still has to be resolved. The NHL has to determine which hub cities will be used, secure COVID-19 testing capability as well as design other health and safety protocols, figure out how to ease the concerns of players potentially being separated from their families for an extended period of time, and likely make some sort of amendment to their health care plans to add in coverage for long-term effects if a player gets infected with the disease.
And, of course, a decision has to be made on when this could all happen. The league is hopeful that players will soon be able to return to their club cities to resume training but there is a lot of red tape to get through there in terms of international travel, self-quarantine guidelines, and the fact that the various states and provinces are currently at different levels of what is and isn’t permissible in terms of gatherings.
There is still a rather large mountain to climb before the puck can drop on the 2020 postseason but with a basic agreement now in place on the number of teams that will be playing, this is at least a big step in that direction.
AHL Cancels Remainder Of 2019-20 Season
Not only has the AHL suspended their season, but now will go a step further. The league announced today that the remainder of the 2019-20 campaign has been canceled, there will be no playoffs and no Calder Cup awarded this year. AHL President David Andrews released a statement:
After a lengthy review process, the American Hockey League has determined that the resumption and completion of the 2019-20 season is not feasible in light of current conditions.
The League’s operational focus has turned toward actively preparing for the 2020-21 season.We are very grateful to the National Hockey League and its teams for their support and leadership in navigating through the challenges faced over the past two months.
The AHL continues to place paramount importance on the health and safety of our players, officials, staff and fans and all of their families, and we all look forward to returning to our arenas in 2020-21.
It is important to note that the AHL and NHL are technically independent operations even though they do work closely with each other. This announcement does not mean a similar one is coming from the NHL, though obviously it is a possibility as they traverse the unknown waters of the coronavirus outbreak.
This is the first time the Calder Cup will not be awarded since it was introduced in 1937. The Charlotte Checkers, last season’s Calder Cup winners, will hold the title for another year.
For minor league players, this now makes the next few months even more confusing. Though they will not be returning to play in the AHL, they could still potentially be recalled by their NHL affiliate to play in games should the season resume, or at least skate with the team as a “Black Ace.” Those are the players brought up to play and travel with the NHL club during the playoffs just in case of injury. Obviously that would be dependent on there actually being an NHL playoffs, something that is not certain at this point.
Unfortunately, the question now becomes what happens with the 2020-21 season. Andrews told Sportsnet radio that “it might be something dramatically different than what it looks like now” and told Michael Traikos of Postmedia that it would be unlikely the league would be able to play if there were no fans allowed in the stands. The AHL is almost entirely gate-driven, meaning without the revenue generated from ticket sales they wouldn’t be able to afford to stage games–at least, not an entire season’s worth.
Boston Bruins Extend Jaroslav Halak
The Boston Bruins will continue to have their veteran goaltending tandem for at least one more season. The team has signed Jaroslav Halak to a one-year extension, taking him through 2020-21. The new deal carries a $2.25MM salary, actually a slight pay cut from the $2.75MM cap hit he carried this year. Halak will join Tuukka Rask as an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2021, allowing the Bruins to reconsider their goaltending situation at that time.
Because the one-year deal is actually a 35+ contract (Halak turns 35 in less than two weeks) he is eligible for performance bonuses. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that the deal also includes $1.25MM in potential bonuses, given out if Halak plays in 10 games. That would mean his cap hit is very likely to be $3.5MM, as long as injury doesn’t keep him from contributing.
Even though Rask is still considered the starter in Boston, it’s hard to overstate just how important Halak has been to the team. In his two seasons with the Bruins he’s made 71 appearances, posting a 40-17-10 record. His .921 save percentage during that time is among the league leaders, ranking sixth among goaltenders with at least 40 starts. That kind of production—especially when combined with Rask, who is eighth on that list—is part of what makes Boston so dangerous. On any given night whoever is in net can steal the show, while their powerful top-six and strong defense corps hold onto the puck for two-thirds of the game.
Halak has seemingly been happy to live outside of the spotlight throughout his career, despite being an excellent NHL goaltender for more than a decade. Perhaps remembered best for the outstanding playoff run he made with the Montreal Canadiens in 2010, he has posted strong numbers in almost every single one of his 14 seasons in the league.
NHL And NHLPA Issue Joint Update On Plans To Return To Play
The NHL and NHL Players’ Association have been cooperating of late in an effort to determine when and how the league may be able resume play and complete the 2019-20 season. After the joint Return to Play Committee met earlier today, the two side released the following statement:
Despite numerous reports and speculation over the last several days, the NHL and the NHLPA have not made any decisions or set a timeline for possible return to play scenarios.
Given recent developments in some NHL Clubs’ local communities, we are now looking ahead to a Phase 2 of the transition period that would follow the currently recommended Phase 1 period of “self-quarantine” by Players and Hockey Staff.
The precise date of transition to Phase 2, during which Players might return to small group activities in NHL Club training facilities, remains undetermined. However, provided that conditions continue to trend favorably – and, subject to potential competitive concerns as between disparately situated markets – we believe we may be able to move to Phase 2 at some point in the mid-to-later portion of May. Specific guidelines governing Player and Hockey Staff activity would be provided at that time. In the meantime, we expect Players and Hockey Staff to continue to adhere to the recommended guidelines put in place when the season was paused on March 12.
While the statement does not provide any material update to the status of the season, the tone is a hopeful one as the two sides detail a rough plan to get players back to their cities and working out in the coming month. This aligns with many of the recent rumors that foreign players had been informed that they would soon need to return to North America and their respective teams, all pointing toward a presumptive continuation of team workouts in May and perhaps training camp (Phase 3) and game action (Phase 4) later in June. As Frank Seravalli of TSN points out, releasing this information now gives players more time to figure out the logistics of a return, with most commercial airlines closed to international travel.
What the league and players’ union also must still decide is how exactly they will continue the season if it gets to that point. The latest speculation from Sportsnet’s Mark Spector details a number of NHL cities bidding for the right to host games by outlining the safest, simplest, and most cost-effective ways to house teams while minimizing the risk of Coronavirus exposure. Local government health policies will also weigh heavily into where these neutral locations might be. Beyond where the games take place, a decision will also need be made on who will take part and in what format. Spector notes that the hope of completing an 82-game season is dwindling but that 76 or 78 games may still be possible. If finishing the regular season proves too difficult, he states that a playoff tournament that includes the top six teams in each division is currently the most probable postseason format.
Again, it is difficult to put too much stock in any conjecture at this point when the NHL and NHLPA clearly state that they do not yet even have a timeline for players returning to their teams nevertheless returning to game action. However, this formal announcement is a step in the right direction and if things continue to “trend favorably”, this won’t be the last update on the 2019-20 continuation.
Chicago Blackhawks Release CEO John McDonough
The Chicago Blackhawks have sent shockwaves across the hockey world today, announcing that they have “released” John McDonough from his role as team president and CEO. Chairman Rocky Wirtz explained the decision:
Thirteen years ago, I recruited John to the Blackhawks because of his leadership, direction and vision. John brought all of that to the table and more. His contributions went well beyond leading the team to three Stanley Cup Championships. He rebuilt the front office and helped guide the organization toward a winning vision. As difficult as this is, we believe it was the right decision for the future of the organization and its fans.
The club will immediately begin a search to fill the role of team president. Daniel Wirtz, who currently serves as vice president and alternate governor, will serve as president in the interim.
Immediately questions will be raised about the future of Stan Bowman, who took over as general manager in 2009 when Dale Tallon was fired weeks after signing Marian Hossa to a 12-year $63.3MM contract. The Blackhawks have failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs since winning the Stanley Cup in 2015, causing many fans to believe that the hockey operations should be under new leadership. Change near the top often drips down an organizational chart, meaning there could be further changes in the coming months.
Still, McDonough’s contribution to the Blackhawks should not be overlooked. When he took over as president in 2007 (CEO wouldn’t be added to his title until 2011), the Blackhawks were drawing just over 12,000 fans per game according to Frank Seravalli of TSN. As he leaves, they are currently on a 531-game sellout streak and won the Stanley Cup three times during his tenure.
Just over a month ago, Wirtz told Scott Powers of The Athletic (subscription required) that there would be no changes in the front office after a frustrating season. In fact, he went so far as to say “if I wasn’t confident (in McDonough, Bowman and head coach Jeremy Colliton), they wouldn’t be employed. Yeah, I’m very confident.”