The NHL is emerging from an extended vacation break with taxi squads and other roster revisions, a move made to guard against further disruptions to the season amid more players and coaches entering the COVID-19 protocol on Sunday.
Each team will be allowed to have a taxi squad of up to six players and make emergency withdrawals of minors if absences from COVID-19 would cause someone to play without a full lineup. The taxi squads, which were used during the shortened 2021 season, will be in effect until at least the All-Star break in early February.
Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly confirmed the new list rules in an email to The Associated Press.
“Any relief is welcome, trust me,” said Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito, who is eager to see how flexibility could help. “It’s tough. What if all of your goalkeepers get it? What are you going to do? We’ve been, as a management team, through a series of ‘what ifs’ scenarios – or maybe we’re fooling ourselves themselves. ” And we should think about the ‘when’, as to who receives it and when. “
Under the new provisions, any team that does not have 12 forwards, six defenders and two goalkeepers available can bring in an American Hockey League player without playing a game with fewer than the usual 18 skaters. Emergency withdrawals can also be made for players with salary caps of up to $ 1 million, an increase from the previous cap of $ 850,000.
Players in the taxi squad will count as minors towards the maximum limit. They can stay there for a maximum of 20 days.
The goal of the changes is to maintain the NHL season after 64 games have already been postponed for coronavirus-related reasons. The 14 games initially scheduled for Monday were previously postponed to allow analysis of COVID-19 tests taken Sunday by players, coaches and staff upon returning to team facilities.
“I understand that all the games that are scheduled now will be played, unless for some reason there is a change,” said New York Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello, whose team is scheduled to play again on Wednesday. “Every indication we have (is) that we will play. We have no indication that we will not play.”
The return to the team’s facilities also brought the predictable result of additions to the COVID-19 protocol list across the league.
Defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lighting added goalkeepers Andrei Vasilevskiy and Brian Elliott, defender Mikhail Sergachev, forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and assistant coach Rob Zettler to the roster. The Islanders added forwards Anthony Beauvillier, Cal Clutterbuck, Zach Parise and Oliver Wahlstrom and activated Mathew Barzal.
Dallas Stars defender Miro Heiskanen, forwards Jason Robertson, Joel Kiviranta, Radek Faksa and Michael Raffl, Philadelphia Flyers defender Ryan Ellis, Buffalo Sabers forwards Dylan Cozens and Mark Jankowski and coach Don Granato, the Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau and Boston Bruins center Charlie Coyle also entered. protocol.
The Sabers said Cozens, Jankowski and Granato were asymptomatic. The team canceled a scheduled practice, which would be Buffalo’s first since Dec. 18.
The NHL began its annual Christmas vacation a day earlier than anticipated last week amid a rapid rise in positive COVID-19 test results among players. At that time, more than a quarter of the league’s 32 teams were shut down due to outbreaks.
Due to its seven Canadian-based teams, the NHL cannot follow the NFL’s lead by failing to do general testing of fully vaccinated asymptomatic players. Lamoriello said league officials are doing their best without any control over the rules and restrictions set by the federal and provincial governments of Canada.
“Unless we didn’t play in Canada and we didn’t have teams in Canada, you could consider that, and it would certainly be (considered),” Lamoriello said of adjusting testing requirements. “But with the Canadian guidelines and rules, it’s impossible for that to happen. We couldn’t have games without the tests that are required to play in Canada.”
The widespread unavailability of boosters in Canada could also hamper the NHL’s efforts to make an additional dose of COVID-19 part of being considered fully vaccinated, as the NBA has done.
Several NHL teams returned to practice on Sunday, including the Calgary Flames, which last played on December 11 and were closed due to a virus outbreak that included 20 players and 13 staff members who ended up on protocol. COVID-19.
AP sports writer Tim Reynolds and The Canadian Press contributed
Reference-www.ctvnews.ca