Interesting news about the Penguins’ last opponent, as the NHL fines Washington Capitals $ 100,000 and adds four players to the list of “COVID-related absences”.
The four players added to the list are all very important:
Travel Protocol: Each member of the Club’s Travel Group must stay in an individual occupancy room; no individual should allow guests or other personnel to enter their rooms (with the exception of cleaning / engineering staff, as needed … as long as the individuals are not present)
– Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) January 21, 2021
Here is Capitals’ statement on the matter:
As Japers Rink details:
The statement is based on existing reports. Mostly, it seems that Ovechkin, Orlov, Kuznetsov and Samsonov were all outside the areas approved by the team at some point (presumably without masks). At the moment, however, we do not know if any Caps player tested positive for COVID, nor for how long it should be disabled.
On Wednesday night, much remains unknown. What exactly do these players do, they only sometimes get together in a hotel room in Pittsburgh – where they stayed from Saturday night until before Tuesday’s game? This seems quite innocuous, considering that they are already in a bubble together in team buses, airplanes, dressing rooms, huddled in the seats while breathing heavily and all these good things indoors for long periods of time.
But is this situation more profound? Were there other non-players present who constituted this heavy fine? How did the league find this out? Did any (or all) of these players test positive to indicate that they violated the procedures? All answers to these questions are currently unknown or unreported at the moment.
The last question is probably the most important, as these players were in close contact with the Penguins on Sunday and also last night. It would be a complicated situation if they discovered that several players may have managed to spread the virus to another team, if applicable. Which, again, at this point, we’re not sure if that’s a possibility. Or it is not a possibility.
An important reminder is that simply being on the “NHL protocol” does not necessarily mean that a player has tested positive for the virus.
Friendly reminder that players appearing on the NHL COVID Protocol list may be absent for a number of reasons: An unconfirmed positive COVID-19 test, a confirmed case of COVID-19, isolation during symptom presentation, contact or quarantine for travel reasons.
– Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) January 15, 2021
By testing, on Wednesday we know that Penguins currently have no players on the NHL COVID protocol, and it will certainly be of great attention in the coming days to hope that no other Pittsburgh players (or Washington in that case) are added to the list .
It also remains unknown how long players in the Capital will be gone or how long before they release the NHL protocol. Capitals is scheduled to play next Friday in Washington. The Penguins also play this Friday in Pittsburgh against the NY Rangers. The NHL has already had to postpone several games in the first week of the season.