Senators add yet another player to Covid protocol list.

The Ottawa Senators just can't catch a break, and today is no exception.

The team has just announced that veteran defenseman Nikita Zaitsev will be unavailable for tonight's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins due to the fact that he has now also been added to the National Hockey League's covid protocol list. Zaitsev is only the latest player to be added to the list, the Senators currently have Austin Watson, Connor Brown, Dylan Gambrell, Josh Brown, Nick Holden, Matt Murray, Victor Mete and Alex Formenton all on the league's covid protocol list, and that doesn't even include associate coach Jack Capuano who is also on the list.

It seemed as though Zaitsev would initially be cleared to play after a pair of negative tests of Friday, but for whatever reason that appears to have changed at the very last minute tonight. I suspect that another positive test was behind the decision to remove him from the lineup at this time, but that is only speculation on my part.

As a result of this development defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker will make his season debut for the Senators this evening. Bernard-Docker is a former Senators 1st round pick (26th overall) at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft and has just 5 games of NHL experience under his belt thus far in his career. At this point it feels as though the entire American Hockey League roster of the Belleville Senators will get the chance to make their season debut in the NHL this season.