NHL Shuts Down 3 Teams Due to COVID Outbreaks

The NHL has announced the Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche and Calgary Flames have shut down all operations through the Christmas break. The expectation at this time is for all three teams to resume operations on December 27.

With the amount of cases increasing around the world of sports and throughout both the United States and Canada, there's some serious potential brewing that the league will conduct a full pause of all 32 teams. Needless to say, the Olympics is also becoming more and more of a pipe dream.

The @NHL has extended the period of game postponements for the @NHLFlames through Dec. 23.

Additionally, @Avalanche and @FlaPanthers games also will be postponed at least through the scheduled completion of the League's Holiday Break on Dec. 26. https://t.co/uwKuHkEhJw pic.twitter.com/d8r558IcCa
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 17, 2021

Actually, NHL sources now saying that #Avs, #FlaPanthers and #Flames (officially) have been shut down until Dec. 27.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 17, 2021

The league originally reported there were a few games that were not going to be played on Saturday and now the shut down has been announced.

As per Sportsnet, here's the list of all the players under COVID-19 protocols as of 2pm on Friday:

Arizona Coyotes: Lawson Crouse (Dec. 16), Jay Beagle (Dec. 16)

Boston Bruins: Brad Marchand (Dec. 14), Craig Smith (Dec. 14), Patrice Bergeron (Dec. 15), Jeremy Swayman (Dec. 16), Trent Frederic (Dec. 16), Anton Blidh (Dec. 16), Oskar Steen (Dec. 16)

— The Bruins, prior to puck drop on Thursday, also announced that an unnamed member of the team's staff was placed in the NHL's COVID-19 protocol.

Calgary Flames: Elias Lindholm (Dec. 13), Andrew Mangiapane (Dec. 13), Brad Richardson (Dec. 13), Adam Ruzicka (Dec. 13), Chris Tanev (Dec. 13), Nikita Zadorov (Dec. 13), Milan Lucic (Dec. 14), Sean Monahan (Dec. 14), Noah Hanifin (Dec. 14), Rasmus Andersson (Dec. 15), Byron Froese (Dec. 15), Johnny Gaudreau (Dec. 15), Erik Gudbranson (Dec. 15), Trevor Lewis (Dec. 15), Jacob Markstrom (Dec. 15), Tyler Pitlick (Dec. 15), Darryl Sutter (head coach, Dec. 15), Kirk Muller (associate coach, Dec. 15), Ryan Huska (assistant coach, Dec. 15), Dillon Dube (Dec. 16), Oliver Kylington (Dec. 16), Mikael Backlund (Dec. 17)

— The Flames also have 10 staff members in protocol

Carolina Hurricanes: Sebastian Aho (Dec. 13), Seth Jarvis (Dec. 13), Jordan Staal (Dec. 14), Andrei Svechnikov (Dec. 14), Ian Cole (Dec. 14), Steven Lorentz (Dec. 14)

Colorado Avalanche: Devon Toews (Dec. 14), JT Compher (Dec. 16), Andre Burakovsky (Dec. 16), Cale Makar (Dec. 16), Darcy Kuemper (Dec. 16)

Detroit Red Wings: Robby Fabbri (Dec. 15), Michael Rasmussen (Dec. 15)

Edmonton Oilers: Ryan McLeod (Dec. 14), Dave Tippett (head coach, Dec. 14), Devin Shore (Dec. 16), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Dec. 17)

Florida Panthers: Sam Bennett (Dec. 15), Radko Gudas (Dec. 15), Ryan Lomberg (Dec. 15), Brandon Montour (Dec. 15), Carter Verhaeghe (Dec. 15), Aaron Ekblad (Dec. 16), Frank Vatrano (Dec. 16)

Nashville Predators: Ryan Johansen (Dec. 12), Mikael Granlund (Dec. 15), Matt Luff (Dec. 15), Michael McCarron (Dec. 15), Philip Tomasino (Dec. 15), Ben Harpur (Dec. 15), John Hynes (head coach, Dec. 15), Nick Cousins (Dec. 16) Dan Lambert (assistant coach, Dec. 15), Todd Richards (assistant coach, Dec. 15), Ben Vanderklok (goaltending coach, Dec, 15), Dan Hinote (assistant coach, Dec. 16)

New Jersey Devils: Nico Hischier (Dec. 11), Ryan Graves (Dec. 11), Jesper Boqvist (Dec. 16)

— The Devils opted to hold P.K. Subban out of Thursday's game against the Vegas Golden Knights for precautionary reasons, but did not place him in protocols right away.

New York Islanders: Mat Barzal (Dec. 14)

Philadelphia Flyers: Morgan Frost (Dec. 14)

Seattle Kraken: Colin Blackwell (Dec. 8), Yanni Gourde (Dec. 11), Riley Sheahan (Dec. 11), Jay Leach (assistant coach, Dec. 11)

Toronto Maple Leafs: Alexander Kerfoot (Dec. 17), John Tavares (Dec. 17)

Vancouver Canucks: Luke Schenn (Dec. 14), Juho Lammikko (Dec. 14), Brad Hunt (Dec. 14), Tucker Poolman (Dec. 14), Jason King (assistant coach, Dec. 15)

Washington Capitals: Garnet Hathaway (Dec. 6), Evgeny Kuznetsov (Dec.15)