With the Bruins still in a quarantine situation after five players were placed on the NHL's COVID-19 Protocol list, Don Sweeney spoke to the media on Monday, covering a number of topics — including the state of the club as far as availability goes this week, the looming trade deadline and the health of other key cogs on this roster. Here are a few highlights from the presser:
B's remain in holding pattern during hard quarantine:
Since the NHL announced on Friday that two of Boston's upcoming games (3/19 vs. BUF, 3/23 vs. NYI) were postponed due to five Bruins entering COVID-19 protocols, it's largely been radio silence from the Original Six club, with all members of the traveling party in Buffalo now back in Boston and stuck in quarantine procedures.
Other than on-site testing at Warrior, those "traveling party" players haven't had access to the team's on or off-ice facilities, while the five players on the COVID list (David Pastrnak, David Krejci, Jake DeBrusk, Craig Smith and Sean Kuraly) are now back in Boston after car services drove them back from Buffalo. So far, those five names have all remained on the NHL's list since Friday, but thankfully no new names have been added by both Boston or the Sabres since then.
While the hope is for Boston to gain clearance from the league and health officials to resume practices on Wednesday and continue games starting on Thursday against the Islanders, those plans will hinge on ongoing testing procedures — not just for the five players already on the list, but for every player on the road trip that likely came in contact with at least one of those five individuals.
“We continue to gain knowledge and move forward over the next couple of days, with the hope of returning to a practice environment at some point in time Wednesday. But we have some hurdles to cross before we can get there," Sweeney said, adding that, even if Thursday's game remains on as scheduled, that a number of players may not have the green light to return quite yet.
Of course, Pastrnak, Krejci, DeBrusk, Smith and Kuraly stand as the most likely names in terms of players that may need to pass additional procedures before returning to the lineup. As such, Boston's lineup on Thursday could be featuring a very, very young lineup — especially with 66% of the club's top-six unit currently on the shelf.
“Subsequent testing here over the next couple of days may determine who’s available to us," Sweeney said. "We do believe that we’ll have a couple of players that will be unavailable, and then the rest of the test results will determine who is available to participate on Thursday night if we’re able to do so. ... You have to field your team. If you’re playing the game, you have to put together the roster as best you can, and the players that are available have to go out and do the job. If we had to recall other players or players that were returning from [injury reserve] that had been working all along, then that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to put forth the absolute best roster we can and compete and play the game that we’re scheduled to play."
At this point, all the Bruins can do is continue to test and hope that more positive cases don't sprout up. But until we hit Wednesday or Thursday, it seems as though all parties involved are pretty much stuck in a holding pattern.
Bruins bracing for a 'war of attrition' due to frantic schedule
Even if Boston manages to dodge a number of bullets and avoids losing key players for extended stretches due to COVID protocols, the road certainly doesn't get any easier for Boston if it is cleared to resume play on Thursday night against the Islanders. So long as Boston doesn't get any addition games postponed (far from a guarantee, to say the least), the B's are still staring at an absolute gauntlet to end the year — with 28 games on schedule for the final 45 days of the regular season.
As much as Boston's schedule usually ramped up a bit in previous years once the calendar turned to February and March — this upcoming slate is another level as far as taxing workloads go. Far from ideal for a veteran club that could be fighting for playoff positioning as late as the final week of the regular season.
"We’re facing more compressed schedules through the next 28 games, and it’s going to be against a war of attrition," Sweeney acknowledged. "In the playoffs you have a war of attrition, but I think the balance of the schedules is going to represent some of those challenges. And some players are getting an opportunity — we’re testing depth, we’ve played twelve defensemen over the course of 28 games. And obviously several forwards are getting an opportunity."
Given the amount of postponements that have been felt across the league for months now — with Monday's matchup between the Canadiens and Oilers the latest to be canned due to two Habs entering protocols — could there be a situation in which the NHL pushes the end of the regular season back a bit in order to accommodate these rescheduled games? Sweeney said that such a call is up to the league, which certainly doesn't want to outright cancel any games — especially not with fans now starting to trickle back in at multiple markets.
“General managers don’t get the opportunity to lobby and push," Sweeney said of asking the NHL to push back the end of the regular season. "The league has its challenges, they know what games they can place and move around. ... they’ll make the games up where they can, if that means to add at the end, they’ll have to look to do that to fit in as many games as they can with the goal to clearly play all 56 games.
"How many more shutdowns or how many things may have to change or correct before those things come (into play)? That’s up to the league to decide. They give us an indication where they think they can fit things in and based on our building availability and schedules with everybody else, and they’ll continue to go to the goal to play all 56 games and utilize every time frame they have.”
B's keeping all options open at deadline
As for how this stoppage impacts Sweeney's willingness to add ahead of the April 12 trade deadline, the B's GM noted that the health and trajectory of the club will be the ultimate determinant in whether the franchise opts to acquire outside help in order to try and put the roster over the top.