Stu Cowan: Nine men out as Canadiens brace for NHL restart in Tampa – Montreal Gazette

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Ready to play NHL Survivor?

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That’s what the rest of this season could look like as the NHL tries to keep playing games despite the exploding number of COVID-19 cases as a result of the Omicron variant.

On Monday afternoon, the Canadiens flew to Tampa, where they are scheduled to play the Lightning on Tuesday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). The Canadiens made the trip without nine players who are on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list. Goalie Jake Allen, Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry and Chris Wideman were added to the list before practice Monday morning in Brossard, joining Laurent Dauphin, Mike Hoffman, Artturi Lehkonen and Tyler Toffoli. Goalie coach Eric Raymond is also on the list.

The Lightning have six players on the protocol list: goalies Andrei Vasilevskiy and Brian Elliott, along with Anthony Cirelli, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Mikhail Sergachev and Andrej Sustr. Head coach Jon Cooper and assistant Rob Zettler are also on the list.

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But NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has decided the games will go on after putting the season on pause for six days with the schedule set to resume with three games Tuesday. The NHL has already postponed 70 games this season because of COVID-19, including Tuesday’s scheduled game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks.

The question is how much longer can this continue as teams run out of players who must spend 10 days in quarantine after testing positive? The Canadiens are already out of the playoff race, but other playoff positions could be decided by COVID-19 as much — if not more — than anything else.

The Lightning, for example, are missing both of their goalies and could have an AHL call-up in net for their next five games.

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Long before COVID, the flu spread through an NHL locker room like wildfire. The players are constantly together in close quarters, whether it be in the locker room, on the bench, in a plane or for team meals. We’re quickly learning just how contagious the Omicron variant is — even among the vaccinated — so we can expect the number of NHL cases to keep rising.

While shutting down the NHL until the New Year might seem like a good idea, will the situation be much different in another week?

“It’s just a different world,” said the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher, who spent 10 days in quarantine after being placed on the COVID-19 protocol list on Dec. 2. “Before, when you’d have the flu, you were playing. You’d come to the rink and you’d try to stay away (from other players). You’d get your separate water bottle and do what you can to stop it from spreading. But you were there to play the game. Now, to be honest, a lot of the guys feel asymptomatic or, if you’re like me, you have symptoms. But you still feel like maybe you could be out there, but you’re kind of forced to stay away for 10 days and that’s for that reason. We’re trying to keep each other safe and trying to stop the spread the best we can.

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“Our guys here have done a really good job,” Gallagher added. “Most of the time when we have had positive cases it hasn’t really spread. This time, obviously, it is. Try to limit it, try to do the best we can. Trust the protocols you have. At the same time, you’ve got to focus and understand that we have a job to do.”

The current spike in NHL COVID-19 cases might have something to do with players going back home to visit family during the Christmas break.

“To be honest, I’m not sure exactly where everyone was,” Gallagher said. “A lot of guys stayed here, spent time with their family. Personally, I went back to Vancouver, saw my family there. Some guys left, some guys were here. Guys that went back, we were pretty cautious around our families and made sure that you’re keeping them safe as well. We understood what our situation was as well.”

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It certainly looks like COVID-19 isn’t going away any time soon, so the NHL will try to keep the season going as best as it can.

The Canadiens have gone back to video conferences for all media interviews and after practice Monday I asked head coach Dominique Ducharme — who tested positive for COVID-19 during the playoffs last season — what the concern level is inside the locker room now when it comes to catching the virus.

“Everyone’s aware, so everyone’s more careful inside here, making sure that everything they ask us to do everyone’s doing it and doing it all the time,” he said. “We know it’s part of the situation right now, but not only for our team. If we look in the province and in the country and around the world, it’s pretty much the same thing. We’re cautious but, at the same time, we know it’s a difficult moment right now. Hopefully, it’s going to be going away and going back to normal as soon as possible.”

As this pandemic drags on, it’s becoming more difficult to remember what normal was.

scowan@postmedia.com

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