After tripping positive COVID results for three straight days (so far), the Bruins are heading home and shutting things down for the time being.
The NHL announced Friday morning that Saturday’s upcoming game between the Bruins and Canadiens at Bell Centre will be postponed — with no makeup date announced at this time. So far, Sunday’s road matchup against the Senators does remain on the docket — although that schedule could also very well be augmented if Boston announces more positive cases.
UPDATE: As of Friday afternoon, the Bruins' home matchup against the Avalanche on 12/23 has also been postponed — although Sunday's game against Ottawa and Tuesday's home matchup with the Hurricanes is still on for now.
You could have made the argument that the Bruins shouldn’t have even played Thursday night against the Islanders at UBS Arena, with the B’s forced to play with just 11 forwards and 17 total skaters after four total players were placed in COVID protocols on Thursday — including Oskar Steen right ahead of puck drop.
With the NHL not announcing any taxi squads or temporary cap relief in the short term to assist these NHL clubs that are losing lineup stalwarts left and right, the Bruins were likely going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place if Saturday’s game was to go on as planned.
Of course, the NHL very well could have pulled the plug because the Bruins revealed more positive cases — which have yet to be announced. Boston was originally scheduled to practice in New York on Friday morning before completing another round of testing, but those plans have been scrapped, with the B’s flying back to Boston this morning.
On Thursday night, Canadiens winger Jonathan Drouin expressed his concern about playing a Bruins team currently battling a full-blown outbreak.
"I'm not really comfortable playing against a team that has so many cases of COVID," Drouin said. "There are currently seven cases, but there could be three more tomorrow. …This is not what we were told with the vaccines for this year. I know things are changing. Like I said, it's not ideal."
From the league’s perspective — whose actions over the last week have unsurprisingly been centered more on fiscal priorities than anything else — pushing back a Bruins/Habs game also made sense given the current state of attendance mandates up in Quebec, with Thursday’s Montreal/Philadelphia game played with no fans in the stands.
Given the mandated 50% capacity put in place in Ontario (where the Bruins are scheduled to play on Sunday), coupled with the likelihood of more positive cases in the near future, Sunday’s matchup also seems to be on thin ice as well.
As of right now, the Bruins have seven players in COVID-19 protocol: Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Craig Smith, Jeremy Swayman, Anton Blidh, Trent Frederic and Oskar Steen.
This post will be updated with more information if new positive cases are announced.