NHL players concerned over return to play after recent positive tests.

The National Hockey League is finally set to return. For weeks now we have heard rumblings about training camps kicking off on the 10th of July and over the weekend we seemingly received confirmation on that front. Reports surfaced on Saturday suggesting that the NHL would kick off the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs by July 30th when they would begin the qualifying rounds after a 2 week training camp and an exhibition game for each team, but it sounds like not everyone is on board with the idea. 

Several players have already expressed concern regarding the NHL's planned return to play over the past few months but a recent outbreak of positive test among the NHL's athletes have left many concerned about what a potential outbreak among players during the playoffs could lead to. Recently Minnesota Wild insider Mike Russo and Toronto Maple Leafs insider James Mirtle teamed up for an article in which an unidentified Western Coference player expressed serious concerns about moving forward.

“This just makes no sense to me,” the veteran player said as per The Athletic. “Right from the return-to-play format announcement and this Phase 2 thing that none of us have to be in, they’ve put the cart before the horse. We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and they’re shocked there’s an outbreak? And it’s a long ways off to July 10, so you can’t tell me more and more guys won’t be testing positive as more and more guys start to get back to town. 

“Guys are not happy. This is why we better have a full player vote and not just an executive board vote. But I’m not convinced (NHLPA executive director) Don (Fehr) is going to allow that because he knows there’s so many of us on the fence. That’s why I think the league was trying to be hush-hush on these positive tests.

“In my opinion, no way we play.”

I will say here that I have some rather extreme doubts about how much the opinion of this one player will impact the NHL's plans to move forward with the season, even if he has a significant amount of other players who feel the same way behind him. The reality is both the league and the players stand to lose here and even players who were once against the idea of returning to play have started to come around as of late. Perhaps the best example of this is Minnesota Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk, one of the men who will actually vote on this proposal, who recently admitted that he has come around to the idea.

“It feels like (we’re going to play) now,” Dubnyk said. “I think we’re going to find out over the next few weeks a lot more how things are going to go with these and more positive tests popping up, how people react to them, all that kind of thing. Before I didn’t feel like we would. Now I’m leaning more towards it feels like we’re going to.”

There are legitimate concerns here to be sure, but I feel like there is simply too much money on the line to stop this.