{"id":80116,"date":"2020-07-12T22:43:33","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T02:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=80116"},"modified":"2020-07-12T22:43:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T02:43:33","slug":"montreal-canadiens-with-multiple-positive-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/07\/12\/montreal-canadiens-with-multiple-positive-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens With Multiple Positive Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/canadiens\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> have announced three positive tests for COVID-19. The news comes at a time when the league and its teams are resuming operations for a restart in early August. The players&#8217; names were withheld due to privacy. Arpon Basu of The Athletic was among those to break the news early Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">League sources have told <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheAthleticMTL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TheAthleticMtl<\/a> that multiple Canadiens players have tested positive for COVID-19: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dBM1vAsIxw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/dBM1vAsIxw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ArponBasu\/status\/1282445343716769796?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Canadiens Announce Positive COVID-19 Tests<\/h2>\n<p>This is the latest potential setback to the impending restart. Defenceman <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/alzneka01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karl Alzner<\/a><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2020\/07\/12\/montreal-canadiens-karl-alzner-opts-out\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently announced<\/a> his opt-out for the restart. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/domima01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Domi<\/a><\/strong> will also miss the first week or more of the restart&#8217;s training camp. Montreal is not going to miss Alzner&#8217;s zero points in four games but he is an experienced defender with almost 700 NHL games. He could have been a spare blueliner as a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2020\/05\/30\/the-montreal-canadiens-black-aces\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black Ace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, an extended absence for Domi beyond the first 7-10 days would be a significant challenge. The 24-year-old had the third-most points with 17 goals and 44 points in 71 games. Domi was behind only <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/tatarto01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tomas Tatar<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/danauph01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phillip Danault<\/a><\/strong> on team scoring. Domi is unlikely to miss much of training camp but his absence will underscore how health conditions such as Type I diabetes looms over hockey in a pandemic.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>The NHL is taking every precaution it can but that might not be enough. Several players have opted-out in recent days including <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=greenmi03,greenmi02&amp;search=Mike+Green&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Green<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/baertsv01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sven Baertschi<\/a><\/strong>, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kampfst01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Kampfer<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>Teams cannot announce which players test positive without player permission but positive tests might push more players to sit out of the remainder of 2019-20. We do not know how many positive tests the league needs before it removes a team from the restart entirely but any number is not good. The restart&#8217;s training camp begins tomorrow. Players have until 5 PM EST to remove themselves from the restart without penalty. More players could do so in the next day after this news.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"h4ZP8Q2XQURlm1hK3UKVvw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/668642196\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'h4ZP8Q2XQURlm1hK3UKVvw',sig:'vw5TERXyrCNTxm7VDtn7afBrlFSGVWgEguUV4hUd1gk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'668642196',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Montreal Canadiens have announced three positive tests for COVID-19. The news comes at a time when the league and its teams are resuming operations for a restart in early August. The players&#8217; names were withheld due to privacy. Arpon Basu of The Athletic was among those to break the news early Sunday afternoon. League [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":80125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4547,34,4548],"tags":[1638,174,152],"class_list":["post-80116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canadiens","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-karl-alzner","tag-max-domi","tag-montreal-canadiens"],"modified_by":"Jim Biringer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}