3 teams shut down until after Christmas

Games are getting postponed and the NHL has decided that some teams needed to be shut down until after the Christmas break. On Friday morning, NHL postponed Saturday’s game between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens seeing that the Bruins have added players to the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol each of the past three days. In Montreal last night, the Canadiens played their game Thursday against the Philadelphia Flyers in an empty Bell Centre after Quebec public health officials asked the Habs to play without any fans in their arena in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

Later on Friday, the NHL postponed more games over the weekend : the contest between the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning and the one between the Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers have been postponed.

Now, league sources confirmed that the Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers and Colorado Avalanche have been shut down until Dec. 27th.

See all games postponed and all teams affected: 

In Calgary, Mikael Backlund became the 19th Flames player to enter the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol on Friday as the outbreak is getting worse around the National Hockey League. That puts the Flames’ total number of cases up to 32, including 19 players.

We can understand why these teams are being shut down, though we are starting to wonder if the NHL will be forced to pause the season.