The Edmonton Oilers played a game on February 11th without Jesse Puljujarvi and Mikko Koskinen due to a false positive COVID-19 result for Puljujarvi and a close-contact situation with Koskinen. Luckily for the Oilers, that was their only encounter with COVID-19 during this 2020-21 season.
That is until Monday night. The schedule came to a halt for Edmonton, as all three games of their miniseries in Montreal were postponed. Canadiens forwards Joel Armia and Jesperi Kotkaniemi were added to the COVID-19 Protocol List Monday afternoon, and the Canadiens were shutdown through Sunday on Tuesday night.
After a compact and uninterrupted schedule, Edmonton’s season and situation has changed on a dime.
“You just got to embrace it,” defenseman Darnell Nurse said about all the schedule changes. “With all this uncertainty and all the different things going on this season, it’s easy to sit back and complain about everything that you have to go through. But you just have to embrace it. It’s a different challenge that we’ll all look back on later in our careers and say we played a 56-game season in a pandemic. For us, there’s not much we can complain about. We get to come out here and do our jobs playing the game we love. To make some sacrifices to be able to do that shouldn’t be too much for guys.”
Luckily for the Oilers, they currently have no players on the COVID-19 Protocol List. Kyle Turris recently spent time on the list, but it does not appear to be because he tested positive for the virus. Rather, Turris was dealing with a close-contact situation. He has been practicing, but has yet to return to game action.
It’s come close to hitting home for the Oilers a few times this season, but Monday night’s late postponement in Montreal was the first true incident of the season for the club. While everyone is doing everything they can to stay safe, nothing is promised in this new world.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” Nurse added. “That’s how the world is right now. Just because we haven’t had to deal with it here in the North (Division), doesn’t mean that we’re immune to it all. It’s a good reminder of what we need to do to keep this thing rolling and how important all the details in the day-to-day, in the people putting in the time to keep everyone safe, how important it is to maintain those guidelines and maintain that focus on keeping this thing going. We’ve been doing a good job of it as a team and the division as a whole has been doing a great job. Can’t let one thing derail it.”
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