The National Hockey League has announced that tomorrow night’s game between the San Jose Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights has been postponed. The news follows after a Sharks player entered the COVID-19 protocol.
Thursday’s @SanJoseSharks vs. @GoldenKnights game postponed. https://t.co/zjfAqf2rl8 pic.twitter.com/OzMqBscPYq
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 24, 2021
Sharks and Golden Knights Postponed
The Sharks and Golden Knights postponement was announced just a few hours after San Jose’s team practise was cancelled without any explanation. It seems that the game has been postponed out of precaution after a member of the Sharks roster entered the COVID protocol. It is unclear, however, if anyone has actually tested positive as of yet.
The San Jose Sharks have closed their training facility indefinitely while the league continues to analyze the developing situation. This is the third Sharks game that the league has postponed in 2020-21. The last two Sharks games postponed were also against the Golden Knights after Vegas had four team personnel enter the COVID protocol. San Jose becomes the ninth team in the NHL with postponed games due to a potential COVID outbreak amongst the team.
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What This Means Going Forward
The league continues to modify the schedule as more and more teams are affected by COVID. Unfortunately it is becoming pretty tight for franchises who have had long delays to their season. As of right now, there are no games scheduled past May 10th. This gives the NHL some wiggle room with their original plan for the regular-season schedule. The NHL playoffs are currently set for a May 12th start. It seems difficult, however, to envisage this happening while having all teams playing their allotted 56 games.
The San Jose Sharks are currently seventh in the West Divison in both points and point percentage. Their biggest issue so far this season is blowing promising leads; San Jose has surrendered five multi-goal leads in the league this season. While they are still 4-1-0 in those games, they are bringing games into overtime and gifting their inter-divisional rivals points. They have only 3 ROWs this year which could be a problem in a compact West Divison.
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