In a pair of scheduling moves aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19 within the league, the NHL has postponed all Columbus Blue Jackets games and the Montreal Canadiens will pause all team activities until at least Dec. 26, the end of the league’s holiday break.
The Blue Jackets had cancelled their morning skate while awaiting COVID-19 test results after calling off practice Sunday. Montreal’s remaining games before the break had already been postponed, though the latest shut down means practices will no longer take place either.
The decision to shut down the Blue Jackets effectively shuts down the Buffalo Sabres heading into the break, too. Buffalo had three games slated for this week, but with the Colorado Avalanche and the Blue Jackets shut down, the team is left without an opponent.
The NHL says a decision on when each team’s training facilities will re-open will be made in the coming days, noting as well that the league is in the process of revising its regular-season schedule amid an influx of virus-related postponements.
Games that featured the Boston Bruins, Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, Calgary Flames and Detroit Red Wings — some of the clubs which have been hit hardest by the virus — had already been postponed heading into the NHL’s Christmas break.
With the number of positive COVID-19 tests among NHL players and personnel skyrocketing in recent days, a rise that is believed to be driven by the prevalence of the Omicron variant, the league had also postponed all games before the break involving cross-border travel.
Research on Omicron is evolving as sample sizes grow, but what has been observed in studies so far indicates it is highly transmissible and less susceptible to vaccines than other variants of the coronavirus, leading to the influx of breakthrough cases — infections among vaccinated peoples — in populations that have high vaccination rates like the NHL and NBA.
More than 40 games this season have been postponed for reasons related to the virus.
