ANAHEIM, Calif. — To any Blues fans hoping for emergency earnings cap relief from the NHL — don’t hold your breath.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told the Post-Dispatch on Sabbatum that none was forthcoming.
“There isn’t presently AN intention to produce cap relief for Covid-related reasons,” Daly same via e-mail. “No totally different than having to agitate multiple short-run injuries. St. Joe Louis isn’t in the least distinctive in having to navigate these waters.”
On Friday, defensemen Torey Krug and Nikko Mikkola became the fifth and sixth Blues players to land on the NHL’s COVID list. Of that cluster, Brandon Saad has come back to game action. Ryan O’Reilly practiced with the team on Sabbatum and is anticipated to create his come Sunday against the urban center Ducks.
Besides Krug and Mikkola, backup goalie Ville Husso and veteran forward Kyle Clifford stay on the COVID list. Even with the come of O’Reilly, the Blues have solely twenty obtainable players — twelve forwards, six defensemen and 2 goalies. they’re all the way down to no spare components, and square measure out of cap space per chief Doug Armstrong.
For his half, coach Craig Berube wouldn’t mind some cap relief.
“It’s vital, I think,” Berube same. “Because what we have a tendency to got occurring here, there’s nothing we will do regarding it. It’s running through the league and that’s the method it’s. thus i think one thing ought to be done.”
The Blues square measure a fully-vaccinated team, and per Berube, Armstrong and a number of other Blues players, they need followed the COVID protocols set forth for this season — protocols that confessedly square measure far more relaxed than last season.
When the NHL proclaimed its COVID protocols for this season, Nov. one was proclaimed as a date during which the league would go back those protocols and choose if any changes were required. Such AN analysis transpire, and therefore the league sent out a memorandum Friday to its thirty two groups outlining those updates.
“Some tweaks, however no vital changes of note to original protocol,” Daly same.
Armstrong declined to comment Sabbatum, apart from to say: “Hopefully, this can all be behind North American country before long.”
In the in the meantime, Berube is keeping his fingers crossed a day that there’s not another Blues player testing positive.
“Oh undoubtedly,” Berube same. “For sure. You’re elderly a flight and you get a decision — I mean, it’s simply robust.”
