10:24 AM
The NHL was going to pause the season on Wednesday and resume after Christmas break, as a result of a spike in COVID-19 cases. There was a diminishing number of games on the schedule after a flurry of team shutdowns.
How will teams get paused? There will be a change in protocols. How will this affect the Olympics and All-Star Weekend?
NHL reporters Emily Kaplan, Greg Wyshynski andKristen Shilton dive into the questions to get you up to speed.
The NHL decided to do this now.
The NHL was ravaged by the COVID-19 outbreak. 11 different teams had to stop operations. More than 15% of players were on the league's protocol list. There was a wave of postponements, including the entire Wednesday night slate of games.
The NHL and NHLPA tried to avoid a pause, but it became inevitable. The NHL and NHLPA thought it was important to have all teams on the same playing field with a few extra days off over the Christmas break. Gary Bettman believes in competitive balance.
The pause may have started sooner, but there were only two games left on Tuesday. The Golden Knights and the Lightning are on TV. Both Washington and Tampa Bay wanted to play by Monday night. The games could still be affected by COVID-19. The Caps have several key players still in the protocol. Kevin was pulled from practice after his test result came back positive.
The two Tuesday games will go on as scheduled. The NHL moved into a daily testing regimen.
The NHL and NHLPA are not going to restrict travel for players over the Christmas break. They recommend that players avoid dining at restaurants unless in a private area, and wear masks indoors if they are going public transportation.
When will games start again, and what should happen to the team?
The games are going to resume Monday.
There isn't a specific mandate for teams to pick up activities again, but we have seen certain patterns emerge on that front. The club that had 19 players and several staff members test positive at the peak of its outbreak reopened its facilities this week to those who had tested negative after several days.
In order for teams to get back on the ice, they need to have any issues under control. They must follow all of the NHL's enhanced protocols and local health guidelines if they want to not have an active spread of the virus.
It was a concern that some rosters were not competitive because of too many players unavailable.
Tom Fitzgerald spoke to the media after the game between the New JerseyDevils and Pittsburgh was postponed.
Fitzgerald said that the team has a lot of sick players. "Bronchial things, common colds, head colds, things that players do play through." You're stretching players out when you lose players. You don't have access to call up the quality people we want to call up from the AHL affiliate of the Devils.
It just didn't feel right to be playing NHL games with a limited lineup since the New Jersey organization has been affected by the COVID-19 issues.
Fitzgerald said it was frustrating when you felt handcuffed because of the situation in Utica. Two players were called up to play on Saturday. One popped a positive [COVID test] and the other was deemed a close contact.
Fitzgerald said there had to be thought of a player's long-term health. Would pushing three players who tested positive for a positive test after 10 days be the right move? He didn't think so.
When the schedule does pick up again, teams will have to look at how many healthy players they have, and what impact COVID-19 has had on individuals.
Will the NHL change some of the return-to-play protocols?
The end of weekly testing for players with no vaccine was one of the changes negotiated by the NFL and NFLPA. Home test kits will be provided to players who volunteer to be tested.
If a player reports feeling unwell, he must be isolated immediately and not be allowed to interact with the team until he produces a negative test.
An overall change in the return-to-play protocols preceded this new testing regime. A player who tested positive for COVID-19 used to have to return to the team with two negative tests in 24 hours. The updated protocols use a new metric called "cycle threshold" that measures the viral load of a player -- essentially measuring whether or not a player is still contagious even if he tests positive.
A player in the National Football League can return to the lineup with two negative or positive tests, one negative and one positive, and a negative Mesa rapid test result within 24 hours.
You can cast your vote to determine the captain for the NHL All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas in 2022. Fans can submit their votes at NHL.com and via the NHL app.
The omicron variant isn't nearly as threatening to players' health as previous versions, especially in light of vaccinations and boosters.
While more players and staff are testing positive, roughly two-thirds of those individuals are not, and most of the remaining individuals have only mild symptoms, the Omicron variant appears to clear positive individuals more quickly than it did with the other variant. He wrote in a leaguewide memo that Omicron appears to be a different illness than the one we first confronted in the spring of 2020.
Will the NHL adopt these standards? The league is going in a more conservative direction at the moment, and on Saturday it announced that it would implement daily testing for all players. The NHL would apply these protocols to teams this season when there were "mini-clusters" of outbreak.
The NHL is expected to allow these new protocols to play out for a bit after the Christmas break, with an evaluation of their impact no later than January 7.
NHL executives have acknowledged that there is a difference between the infections now and the infections at the beginning of the Pandemic. The deputy commissioner said that vaccines prevent serious illness for players. Some players are sick, but they are not getting sick like they were last year, according to Daly. "That's a direct result of being fully vaccineed."
The NHL has to deal with the Canadian government, unlike the NFL, which has to deal with provincial governments.
What do the players want from the NHL?
The players I've spoken with are in favor of the NHL finding ways to get players out of the protocols quicker, including the adoption of the NFL's tests for how contagious they are.
One NHL veteran said that he hadn't talked to a single guy that didn't want to see changes in the protocols. We need to get these guys back into the lineup quicker.
The outbreak on the Flames has been noted by some players. The Flames had 19 players in the NHL and had their games postponed through the Christmas season. The cases so far have been either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, with players recovering after 36-48 hours.
All of us have gotten vaccinations. One NHL veteran said that they triple-vaccinated. Every single day, we test. We're spending millions of dollars. To tell a guy that he can't play for a while?
The players want to treat COVID-19 like an illness and stay out of the lineup until they feel better, instead of taking a test to determine when they can come back.
Patrick Kane and Mika Zibanejad are key players for their countries at the Olympics. The NHL's participation in the Games is in question.
What will the Olympics mean for the NHL?
The NHL has until January 10 to decide not to participate in the Olympics. Gary Bettman was never a fan of sending players to the Olympics, but he made an agreement with the NHLPA during the last rounds of bargaining and intended to see that agreement through in good faith. If the season had been "materially impacted" by the COVID-19 postponements, the NHL was going to exercise the opt-out clause.
Sources say the league views the 49 total postponements as a material impact. The three-week Olympic break will be needed to make up the games. Sources say that the NHL will announce this week that players are not going to the Olympics.
"It's a huge letdown because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for so many guys, you don't know if you'll get that chance again," said one veteran player who was likely going to make the roster for Team USA. This was always a possibility and we get it. We were so close that it just sucks.
The Olympic rosters will now be filled with amateur players and professionals. The NHL didn't send players to the Olympics in South Korea. The NHL players were able to negotiate for their participation in the Olympics in Italy in the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Does this affect the All-Star Weekend?
The NHL and NHLPA haven't had any discussions about the fate of NHL All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas yet. The skills competition and the All-Star game are on the same day. The All-Star Fan Fair at the Las Vegas Convention Center went on sale in December, and as of last week, all systems are go.
If the NHL and COVID-19 are not improved, there will be discussions about the event's status, given that it would bring players from all over the league together in one location. The NHL All-Star Weekend will be broadcast by ABC.
