The day after having a fourth game postponed this week, the Flyers saw their number of players on the NHL’s COVID protocol list grow to five.
Jakub Voracek and Morgan Frost were added to the league’s COVID protocol list on Thursday. Claude Giroux, Justin Braun and Travis Sanheim remained on the list, which is updated daily by the NHL at about 5 pm Eastern Time.
There are several factors that contribute to why a player can be placed on the list of COVID protocols. A player absent because of the COVID protocol does not necessarily mean that the player’s test is positive for the coronavirus.
However, it is a little worrying to see two more Flyers players listed as excluded because of the COVID protocol. The club did not see their numbers rise on Wednesday, good news that turned out to be brief for the Flyers. Per league protocols, all teams receive daily COVID-19 tests. If they are not on the road, the Flyers pass their tests at the Virtua Center Flyers Skate Zone in Voorhees, New Jersey.
Giroux and Braun were placed on the COVID protocol list on Tuesday. Sanheim has been sidelined since Sunday, when he lost the Flyers’ 7-4 victory over the Capitals for COVID protocol. Voracek, Giroux and Braun played in the game and trained on Monday. It is not known how much Frost was around the Flyers, if at all, recently. The 21-year-old center is on the injured reserve and underwent shoulder surgery last week at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado.
On different days this week, the Flyers had games on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday all postponed because of the COVID protocols. The team will be out of service until Monday, when it should return to training. The Devils, who were originally supposed to play against the Flyers on Thursday and Saturday, 18 players on Thursday’s COVID protocol list. New Jersey hasn’t played since January 31.
The Flyers’ next scheduled game is February 18 (next Thursday) against the Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center. The team must then travel to Stateline, Nevada, to play against the Bruins in the NHL Outdoors at the Lake Tahoe game on February 21. With Sunday’s game against Rangers postponed, the league is clearly trying to provide as much time as possible for the Flyers’ situation to improve and eventually settle before the outdoor game.
Avalanche and Golden Knights kick off the Lake Tahoe event the day before the Flyers-Bruins game. Colorado had three players on Thursday’s COVID protocol list (Samuel Girard, Tyson Jost and Gabriel Landeskog).
Again, as is inevitable with the coronavirus pandemic, it is a way to wait and see the NHL.
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