Charlie Coyle held out of practice due to COVID-19 test.

The Boston Bruins have had a bit of a scare bit it may be much ado about nothing.

According to a report from Boston Bruins insider Joe Haggerty, the Bruins were forced to hold Coyle off the ice on Saturday due to a COVID-19 test that came back inconclusive. That certainly seems bizarre but I know nothing about the tests for this virus, although I have heard that they do at times return false positives. Due to the test the Bruins proceeded with caution but Coyle has reportedly since undergone another test which has come back negative. 

Coyle's agent Bob Norton was able to confirm that Coyle was fine and feeling healthy.

“First test was inconclusive so held him off the ice in an abundance of caution,” said Norton as per NBC Sports. “He then tested negative in a follow-up test. He’s fine.”

This could certainly help shed some light on the huge number of players that were suddenly absent from the Bruins practice session on Saturday, something that we noted at the time. Given that so many players had suddenly been sidelined all at once many suspected that the absences were related in some way to COVID-19, but with the National Hockey League shutting down all injury and illness reports all we had to go on at the time was pure speculation. The fact that we now know Coyle, a player that had previously been in contact with several of his teammates, had a scare with a test it could help explain why so many of the Bruins were kept off the ice on Saturday.

I will stress however that this is not conclusive proof that all of those players were kept off for this reason, it just seems highly likely given the information that we now have.