Amanda Stein is reporting on the Devils’ official website that tomorrow’s game at the Prudential Center against the Ottawa Senators has been postponed. It was supposed to be played Tuesday, November 16 at 7 PM.
The Senators have had “a significant Covid-19 outbreak” and “the decision has been made to postpone Ottawa’s games at least through Nov. 20” according to Stein.
The Sens have had the game at the Devils – for which they were supposed to travel to New Jersey today (November 15) – before they returned to Ottawa to play host to the Nashville Predators on November 18 and the New York Rangers on November 20.
However, with the Senators having ten players currently in COVID-19 Protocol, the decision was made to postpone these games.
The game at Newark will be rescheduled and that date will be announced at a later date.
The NHL made a statement on the matter saying that, because of the ten players in protocol, “and evidence of continued spread in recent days, the team’s games will be postponed at least through Saturday, Nov. 20. The decision was made by the League’s NHLPA’s and Club’s medical groups.”
As a result of this, “the team’s training facilities have been closed, effective immediately, and will remain closed for Players until further notice. The League is in the process of reviewing and revising the Senators’ regular season schedule. The Senators organization has, and will continue to follow, all recommended guidelines aimed at protecting the health and safety of its Players, staff and community at large as set by the NHL, local, provincial and national agencies.”
If you have tickets for the game, “Devils Black and Red Members, Premium Partners, Partial Plan Holders and Group Leaders are asked to contact their Devils Account Manager with any questions or send an email to tickets@newjerseydevils.com.”
If you purchased individual tickets and it was through “Ticketmaster, you will receive email communication directly from Ticketmaster and your tickets will be valid for the rescheduled game date. No further action is required by you at this time.”
If you bought individual tickets “via a secondary marketplace that is unaffiliated with the New Jersey Devils, please contact their customer service department with any inquiries.”
Because the game is off for Tuesday, the next time the Devils play will be against the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, Florida on Thursday, November 18. They will play Saturday, November 20 at the Tampa Bay Lightning and then their next home game will come Wednesday, November 24 against the Minnesota Wild.
While I understand that the Senators had to have games postponed due, not only to their COVID-19 situation, but also due to restrictions in being a Canadian team. This sort of begs the question of why the San Jose Sharks did not have games postponed when they had an outbreak earlier this month.
The Devils came into contact with a few teams that had full-on or mini COVID issues and, I am sure could have been in danger of having games postponed.
That being said, it is good that the NHL decided to follow the lead of medical leaders and get the Senators able to recover. It would be easy to have them call up a bunch of players from the AHL’s Belleville Senators, but that would not only be not fair to the Sens, but also to their opponents, who may get a win, but do not face the highest level of competition at the NHL level.