Canes Christmas break starts now after final pre-holiday game scrapped due to COVID
It’s time for the Carolina Hurricanes to rest up and, most importantly, get healthy.
The Canes’ game against the Ottawa Senators in Canada on Thursday was officially postponed Sunday, the last of their games before the league’s holiday break to be called off. That announcement came from the league in the wake of another Carolina forward — Stefan Noesen — entering the NHL COVID-19 protocol earlier in the day.
Noesen becomes the seventh player currently in the protocol, joining fowards Jordan Staal, Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, Steven Lorentz and defenseman Ian Cole.
The NHL announced later Sunday that the Canes’ game against the Senators had been postponed. The Canes earlier had a Sunday home game against the Nashville Predators and Tuesday road game against the Boston Bruins after postponed because of COVID issues with those teams.
The NHL and NHL Players Association said Sunday that after meeting with medical experts, there was a joint commitment to continuing the 2021-22 regular season while taking stricter prevention and detection measures. The NHL and NHLPA announced that all cross-border games between U.S.-based teams and Canadian-based teams from Dec. 20-23 would be postponed, including the Canes-at-Senators game.
The Canes’ next scheduled game is Dec. 27 at home against the Florida Panthers. They now have four postponed games — the Dec. 14 game at Minnesota also was called for COVID reasons — to try and fit into their 2021-22 schedule.
The NHL and NHLPA said there would be announcement in the next few days on the 2022 Beijing Olympics. With the disruption of the regular season and so many postponed games to be played, and with COVID concerns and quarantine requirements once in China, the NHL and NHLPA could decide not to participate in the Games.
The NHL and NHLPA said moving forward the decision to temporarily shut down a team would be made on a case-by-case basis. They said there would be daily monitoring of the number and pattern of positive COVID results, and of the depth of teams’ lineups “to ensure both the health and safety of the Players and the integrity of League competition.”
The Canes (21-7-1) were required to play with 16 skaters and an 18-man roster on Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings, winning the game 5-3. After one game of playing short, Carolina was allowed to additional emergency callups for a full 20-man roster Saturday against the Los Angeles Kings, winning 5-1.
Noesen, 28, was one of the call-ups from the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League this past week and one of the more experienced. He played the past two games as the Canes (21-7-1) took victories over the Detroit Red Wings and then the Los Angeles Kings at home.
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said after Saturday’s 5-1 win over the Kings that Noesen has “played really well for us.” Noesen had 16 minutes of ice time and had a team-high four hits.
The Canes had forward Martin Necas leave Saturday’s game to enter the concussion protocol. It was not known after the game if he would be available should Thursday’s game at Ottawa be played as scheduled.
The Canes have had defensemen Ethan Bear, Brett Pesce and Tony DeAngelo enter the protocol, quarantined and been cleared to return. DeAngelo scored in the win over the Red Wings and Pesce against the Kings.
This story was originally published December 19, 2021 at 2:03 PM.
