The Calgary Flames had two more games postponed by the NHL on Friday due to COVID-19 concerns.
The Flames were scheduled to host the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday and the Seattle Kraken on Thursday. Their next scheduled game at home against the Edmonton Oilers on is December 27th.
The Flames, who have 19 players, three coaches and nine support staff members in NHL COVID-19 protocol, have had six games postponed. They have not played since a 4-2 home loss to the Boston Bruins on December 11th. Makeup days will be announced at a later date.
Forward Mikael Backlund and a member of the Flames support staff entered COVID-19 protocol Friday, one day after forward Dillon Dube and defenseman Oliver Kylington as well as one support staff member were added to protocol.
On Wednesday, forwards Byron Froese, Johnny Gaudreau, Trevor Lewis and Tyler Pitlick, defensemen Rasmus Andersson and Erik Gudbranson and goalie Jacob Markstrom were placed in protocol, along with coach Darryl Sutter, assistants Ryan Huska and Kirk Muller and seven support staff members.
Forwards Milan Lucic and Sean Monahan, and defenseman Noah Hanifin went into protocol Tuesday, one day after forwards Elias Lindholm, Andrew Mangiapane, Brad Richardson and Adam Ruzicka, defensemen Christopher Tanev and Nikita Zadorov, and a member of the training staff entered. The NHL announced the Flames had their next three games postponed Monday, with a fourth added Wednesday.
The NHL on Monday also cited a continued spread and the likelihood of additional positive cases in the coming days. The Flames were scheduled to play at the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday and Nashville Predators on Tuesday, host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.
“We have to prepare,” Flames general manager Brad Treliving said Tuesday. “The lesson for all of us in this time is you take the information you have and you make the best decision you can and you move forward. So today we know what we’ve got in terms of positive tests. … We have to plan accordingly until we have further information.”
Calgary’s training facilities are closed for players until further notice.
Treliving said Flames players were tested the morning of December 11th in advance of their planned flight to Chicago the next day. When three positive tests came back by early Sunday, the entire team was tested again at the airport later that day before its scheduled departure.
The flight was delayed pending results. Treliving said Calgary contemplated flying to Chicago early Monday, but the three original positive tests were confirmed and three other positive tests came back late Sunday, prompting the postponements.
“As we all learned in the past couple of years, you stay limber and nimble and prepare to pivot,” Treliving said. “We’re dealing with an imperfect … we’d all like there to be no COVID. There is, so we’ve got to deal with it. And so I don’t think that’s a problem. You deal with it. Once this thing started, you do your best to try to limit it. Once we got the results back on Sunday morning, we just felt, let’s be safe. I don’t think there’s any perfect situation or perfect way to go about it. You do the very best you can. Our medical staff and doctors do a great job to try to keep everybody safe. We’re dealing with a pandemic. There’s a lot of imperfections right now when you deal with this.”
Treliving said the players, coaches and staff members in protocol just add to the roster and logistical issues a team and general manager always are juggling.
“We’re jumping back and forth between a few sandboxes,” Treliving said. “You’ve got health and safety number 1. So that takes precedence over everything. We’ve got a great medical team. Our people know whatever they need will be provided for them. But let’s not lose sight that everything’s a distant second to that.”
Treliving said he isn’t sure the alarm the past few days has quite risen to the level experienced when the pandemic began shutting down parts of the world in March 2020.
“That was a cold slap,” he said. “It’s part of the world. There are ebbs and flows to it. We hadn’t really been in this kind of situation before. Other teams have. We’re in it now, so we’ve got to deal with it. Everybody gets that fatigue, right? But you can’t, you can’t slip up, let your guard down. It’s out there. You’ve got to stay diligent with it and deal with it as best you can.
“To me, it doesn’t necessarily feel like the newness, when it all came upon us in our lives two years ago. Yeah, it’s tough and it’s draining and there’s that fatigue factor. But this is just part of life now. And so we’ve got to make sure we’re doing the right things and keeping people safe and following the rules.”
The NHL also announced Friday the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers would be shut down through the holiday break. They each are scheduled to play next on December 27th, Colorado at the Vegas Golden Knights and the Panthers at the Carolina Hurricanes.
A decision on when each team’s training facilities will re-open will be made by the League and the NHL Players’ Association in the coming days. The NHL is in the process of reviewing and revising all three teams’ regular season schedules.
The NHL has now postponed 20 games this season because of COVID-19 concerns or issues. There were 55 games postponed last season; all were made up as part of a 56-game schedule.
NHL.com staff writers Tracey Myers and Tim Campbell contributed to this report
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