San Jose Sharks coach Bob Boughner, right, confers with assistant coach Mike Ricci during the second period of the team’s NHL hockey game against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, in Denver. As part of the NHL’s new COVID-19 protocols, the glass panels behind the team benches are being removed to improve airflow. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The NHL’s new protocols meant to help curb the spread of COVID-19 around the league might put a crimp into the routines of a few players. But San Jose Sharks coach Bob Boughner said it’s incumbent on everyone to adapt and focus on what they can control in an increasingly unpredictable year.
With a rising amount of players becoming unavailable due to league protocols, the NHL announced new measures Thursday designed to increase safety, including the removal of the glass panels behind the team benches to improve airflow and forbidding players from entering arenas until 1 hour and 45 minutes before game time.
All 31 teams also need to space out locker rooms to try and provide six feet of space between people, and that all team meetings must become virtual.
While they’re home, the Sharks are already having to abide by Santa Clara County’s rules for professional and collegiate sports teams, including maintaining six feet of social distance from other ahletes and personnel at all times.
“Taking the glass out and things like that will be a little different for us,” Boughner said. “But we’ve been trying to be safe like that since day one. Any more procedures is completely fine with us.”
Boughner mentioned Patrick Marleau and Brent Burns as two Sharks players who like to arrive much earlier than an hour and 45 minutes for games.
“But it’s one of those years,” Boughner said. “We’re going to have to flexible and be able to adjust, and we knew that coming into training camp that things were going to come up. Nothing about this season is normal.
“We’ll make sure we’re following protocol. No matter what else is going on, our job is to win hockey games.”
Both Marleau and Burns have active ironman streaks going into Friday’s game with the Anaheim Ducks. Marleau’s streak of 862 straight games dates back to April 2009. Burns’ streak, which began in Nov. 2013, is at 549 games.
The new rules will affect players’ routines, Sharks captain Logan Couture said, but “this isn’t a regular season. All the stuff that’s going on this year, nothing is normal to us or to anyone in the world, really. So it’s not that big of a deal, in my opinion.”
As of Thursday morning, 40 NHL players were unavailable due to COVID-19 protocols and four teams, Vegas, New Jersey, Buffalo and Minnesota, have had their seasons placed on pause.
On Wednesday, the Wild added five players to the COVID list, as the NHL announced it was pausing Minnesota’s season at least until next Tuesday with team facilities closed until further notice.
Reasons a player can be placed on the COVID list include a positive test, an unconfirmed positive test, and/or contact tracing.
The Sharks had one player at the start of the regular season, forward Max Letunov, on the NHL’s COVID-19 unavailable list. But he rejoined the Barracuda for its training camp later in January.
The Barracuda found out last Saturday as it was playing the Henderson Silver Knights in Las Vegas that a player, still unknown, had tested positive. The team has since relocated back to Arizona but did have its scheduled season-opener Friday against Tucson cancelled.
“It’s crazy. It seems to be all over the league here,” Sharks goalie Devan Dubnyk said. “So we’ve got to do our best. If that’s a reminder for everybody to be extra diligent if we had been slipping a little bit — I don’t know if that’s the case, these things are going to happen, these (positive) tests are going to come, regardless of what you do. But it’s a good reminder just to be extra careful.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
