Oilers and Leafs find a creative way to gain a playoff advantage.

For many of us in North America life is slowly beginning to return to normal as more and more Covid restrictions are lifted and taken out of our lives, hopefully for good. This has had an impact on the National Hockey League as well with fans finally being allowed to return to watch live games this season, but there are still some restrictions in place that could seriously impact teams in the league in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Perhaps chief among those is a restriction that could have a major impact on Canadian franchises, one that requires all those landing in the United States of America on an international flight to be tested for Covid-19. As many of you know we have seen cases of false positives as a result of the Covid-19 tests, including in the NHL itself, but such a scenario in the playoffs could have serious implications for the player and the team involved.

It would appear that teams North of the border were well aware of this possibility prior to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and this week we saw the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs get very creative in an effort to avoid exactly this problem.

After the Oilers picked up a win in Game 2 of their first round series against the Los Angeles Kings this week, they flew to Vancouver, spent the night in a hotel, and then took a bus over the border to Washington the very next morning. This allowed the Oilers to avoid the additional testing, flying from Bellingham to Los Angeles instead of internationally from the province of Alberta, Canada directly to the state of California.

The Leafs made a similar move following Game 2 of their first round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, taking a bus into the United States and flying out from Buffalo, New York instead of directly from Toronto.

The moves have resulted in additional travel time for the players, but considering you avoid the possibility of losing a player like Auston Matthews or Connor McDavid to a false positive it may very well be worth it for all involved.

And if you're wondering if the NHL has a problem with the Leafs or the Oilers circumventing the rules in place, they definitely do not. It sounds like the league is perfectly fine with their teams finding creative ways to keep their best players on the ice and, when you consider the NHL uses those stars to market their product, it makes perfect sense.

"We have no objection or issue with them utilizing the rules and policies that have been put in place by the applicable health authorities to their maximum advantage," said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly on Friday.

It will be interesting to see if the decision made by the Oilers and the Maple Leafs will impact any of their competitors in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I could certainly see other teams in the league following this trend if it means avoiding the risk of potentially losing a player to a false positive, especially in the later rounds of the tournament.