The NHL is postponing the next three Ottawa Senators games as the team continues to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak that currently has 10 players in the league’s protocol.
Ottawa’s road game against New Jersey (Tuesday) and home games against Nashville (Thursday) and the New York Rangers (Saturday) are the games currently being postponed.
More, from the NHL:As an appropriate precaution, the team’s training facilities have been closed, effective immediately, and will remain closed for Players until further notice. The League is in the process of reviewing and revising the Senators’ regular season schedule.
The Senators organization has, and will continue to follow, all recommended guidelines aimed at protecting the health and safety of its Players, staff and community at large as set by the NHL, local, provincial and national agencies.
The Senators just played back-to-back games over the weekend, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3 on Saturday night and then losing to the Calgary Flames 4-0 on Sunday night.
Ottawa’s next scheduled game is currently Monday, November 22 at the Colorado Avalanche.
The Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch has more details on testing issues the Senators have been having.A big issue has been the testing for the Senators because one test is producing positives and then another PCR test is showing a negative. For example, Batherson had a positive Saturday morning and then a negative with a PCR test taken soon after. An antigen test in the afternoon produced another negative so he played Saturday and had four points in the club’s 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Then, Sunday he had an antigen test that showed another positive so he was placed n COVID-19 protocol. The players are being tested as much as three times daily while the staff has one PCR test daily.
Almost all of the NHL’s players are vaccinated, but there have still been a handful of small outbreaks and breakthrough cases around the league. The Senators’ has been the most significant so far and the first one that has resulted in the postponement of games.
Drake Batherson, Austin Watson, Nick Holden, Josh Brown, Connor Brown, Dylan Gambrell, Matt Murray, Nikita Zaitsev, Victor Mete, Alex Formenton and associate coach Jack Capuano are all members of the Senators organization currently in the league’s protocol.
As of now there is no word on when these three games will be rescheduled.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.