As one of the team’s hit hardest by the COVID protocol rules, the Calgary Flames are finally healthy again and every player that hit the protocol list is back, just in time for the NHL to resume games on Tuesday. Wes Gilbertson tweets, “G Daniel Vladar out of COVID-19 protocol and back at Monday’s practice. The only player absent is RW Tyler Pitlick, which is injury-related.”
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For a lot of the Flames’ players, Sunday was the first time many teammates got to see one another in a couple of weeks. “Today was the first time I’ve seen the guys on the team, my teammates,” said goalie Jacob Markstrom. He added, “It’s been a lot of time spent at the house and, you know, doing nothing. It’s nice to see everyone and to see everybody is in a good mood and happy to be back at practice. And it’s nice to have a couple of days to try to get back to somewhat game shape.”
The Flames were leveled by players being removed from the lineup but if the team was going to get hit hard, their timing was good. A couple of their games were postponed and the NHL then took their holiday break, pausing play for all cross-border games. In the end, Calgary won’t actually have many man-games missed because of the virus and they’ll be able to ice a full roster coming out of the break while other teams will have to battle with players hitting the COVID protocol list now, and likely using newly-announced taxi squads to fill out their respective rosters.
In other words, getting hit hard by COVID was better to have happened early than to be happening now.
The Flames are still near the top of the Pacific Division after a strong start to the season. They sit behind the Anaheim Ducks and Vegas Golden Knights but have four games in hand on each of those teams.
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