Last Tuesday, the National Hockey League announced that the Buffalo Sabres had their games through today cancelled because they entered the league’s COVID-19 protocols. Two of their games against the Boston Bruins scheduled for Saturday night and tonight were postponed.
While the league announced on Saturday that makeup dates for those games for later in the season, you knew that there was a good chance that the Bruins schedule this season would be affected again by the coronavirus.
The @NHL today announced updates to the 2020-21 regular-season schedule.
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 6, 2021
Details: https://t.co/rTwJnVvMvy pic.twitter.com/6OLpmmdd5I
Just over 48 hours following Saturday’s announcement of the makeup dates for the two Sabres games from over the weekend, COVID-19 is forcing another postponement on the Boston schedule.
NHL announced Monday that they were postponing more games and the Bruins were on the list of postponements.
Monday afternoon, the NHL announced that the Sabres, New Jersey Devils and Minnesota Wild were having games postponed as a result of COVID-19 protocols. The Devils have been in COVID-19 protocols since Jan. 31 and their stay there will extend until at least through Feb. 15.
That means the Bruins game a week from tonight at the TD Garden against the Devils will be postponed. Boston will return to the ice Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden in New York against the Rangers to begin a three-game road trip. The Bruins will play Friday night against the Rangers again, before finishing up the trip on Long Island against the New York Islanders.
Schedule Update: Additional @BuffaloSabres, @NJDevils and @mnwild games postponed. https://t.co/byeWmfM5FG pic.twitter.com/BjJbBYKMNj
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 8, 2021
We are almost one month in the season and COVID still is having a big effect on the schedule. Games are being postponed daily and the league has a big task ahead of itself in trying to reschedule the games. With realigned divisions to limit travel this season, it could make the rescheduling of games easier, but don’t expect this to be the last time games are postponed.
The regular-season is scheduled to end May 8 before the playoffs begin. Will the NHL be able to reschedule each game? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell.