Flames’ Czarnik leaves the bubble due to emergency!

The Calgary Flames will have to consider another solution when it comes to possibly replacing forward Matthew Tkachuk in their lineup for today’s Game 3 against the Dallas Stars. 

 Tkachuk left Thursday’s Game 2 versus the Stars with an undisclosed injury. The young forward spent most of the contest in and out of the dressing room before leaving the game for good in the third period.

After the game, Wes Gilbertson of the Calgary Sun reported interim head coach Geoff Ward had no update on Tkachuk’s status. It was believed that 
Austin Czarnik could enter the lineup to replace him, however, more shocking news has come to the Flames when it was announced that Czarnik had to leave the bubble in Edmonton due to a family matter. 

If Tkachuk can’t play, Zac Rinaldo might now be the one entering the lineup. 

This means the Flames will have to be quick on their feet to come up with solutions seeing that they are playing back to back games. We still don’t know about Tkachuk’s status but we know Czarnik is out and will have to quarantine before returning to the Flames’ lineup. With Czarnik's departure, the Flames have 30 players available within the bubble: 4 goalies, 10 defensemen, 16 forwards.

According to the protocol, team members wanting to return to the bubble must provide four consecutive negative COVID-19 tests carried out over four days. They will be quarantined over at least that time period, and possibly up to 14 days depending on risk of exposure while outside the bubble.