Seven Canucks remain on NHL's COVID-19 protocol list two days ahead of return to play
The Vancouver Canucks are scheduled to play an NHL hockey game in two days and seven players remain on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list, leaving you to wonder if they’ll indeed be able to play the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Arena on Friday night.
Thursday will be the first time they’ll skate together as a team in more than two weeks; Friday would be the first time they’ll actually play a game in more than three weeks.
Wednesday’s update to the NHL’s COVID list shows Jalen Chatfield, Alex Edler, Jayce Hawryluk, Nils Höglander, Zack MacEwen, Nate Schmidt and Jake Virtanen are still out. Based solely on the timing of when they were placed on the list, Schmidt, Virtanen and Höglander weren’t going to be available on Friday anyway, but the fact Edler, Hawryluk, Chatfield and MacEwen remain on the list is notable.
All four of those players went on the COVID list around the same time as the cohort of players who came off the list Wednesday: Travis
Boyd, Thatcher Demko, Braden Holtby, Bo Horvat, Marc
Michaelis
, Tyler Motte, Tyler Myers, Antoine Roussel and Brandon Sutter.
Sutter “has had dreadful symptoms,” Matt Sekeres reported on
Wednesday’s edition of the Sekeres and Price Show
. Sekeres also wondered aloud whether head coach Travis Green would be behind the bench on Friday night.
To come off the COVID list, players must pass a cardiac screen and also be cleared by the team’s doctors, so we’ll have to watch and see how long Edler, Hawryluk, Chatfield and MacEwen remain on the list.
And, of course, this is the second go-round for Hawryluk with COVID-19, as the winger caught the virus in California in March 2020 while on a road trip with the Ottawa Senators. That he’s apparently dealing with a second bout that’s lasting longer than the minimum is a reminder of how nasty this virus is.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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