Four Vancouver Canucks now placed in NHL’s COVID-19 protocol

Just minutes before the puck dropped at Tuesday night’s game between Vancouver Canucks and Columbus Blue Jackets, the local teams tweeted a third player tested positive for COVID-19.

Defenceman Brad Hunt joins defenceman Luke Schenn and forward Juho Lammikko, who were confirmed to be in the protocols earlier in the day. The entire team was tested for a second time Tuesday afternoon, and it was that testing that resulted in Hunt being separated from the group.

An hour into the game, defenceman Tucker Poolman was pulled from Tuesday’s game and was placed into the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.

The Canucks are just one of a number of teams dealing with COVID-19 cases this week, with seven teams adding players to the protocols Tuesday and four games across the league being postponed just this week.

“We live in a different world, and we all have to make adjustments to it,” team president Jim Rutherford said. “And we’ll adjust to this situation. The Canucks have experienced this before, last year. It’s not a fun place to be for our players. It wasn’t something that was easy to go through last year and nobody wants to get in that same situation this year.

“So we’re all reminding everybody to follow the proper protocols that are set out by the league. It’s not fun, but it’s the hand we’re dealt with.”

Canucks players, who endured the most serious coronavirus outbreak of the National Hockey League’s pandemic season in 2020-21, were uncomfortable with the idea of skating Tuesday morning after Schenn and Lammikko were required to isolate for at least 10 days.

“It’s our decision but we work with the players,” Canucks president Jim Rutherford said of the sudden cancellation of the morning skate. “There has to be a comfort level here. And nobody was comfortable here at the building this morning, nor would we expect them to be. So when we found out that the players weren’t comfortable, we just felt that it was better to play it safe this morning.

“The players are ready to play the game; they have no problem with playing the game tonight. But there was not a comfort level to be around very long this morning.”

Rutherford said he hoped to have follow-up test results for the team’s players and staff by 6 p.m. PT, about an hour before the Canucks and Blue Jackets were scheduled to face off.

He said he didn’t know what number of players would need to test positive for the game to be postponed, but it is more than the three currently in protocol.

Schenn and Lammikko joined the Canucks this season.

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In April, 25 members of the organization, including 21 players, tested positive for the debilitating P.1 variant of COVID-19 before vaccinations were widely available.

Veteran Canuck centre Brandon Sutter continues to suffer long-haul effects from the virus and has spent this season on long-term injured reserve.

Including injured players, there are a dozen Canucks on the roster who were part of last spring’s outbreak that caused the organization to shut down for nearly two weeks and go 23 days between games.

“I can’t speak for them, but based on what I knew about last year, that was not an experience anybody wants,” Rutherford, hired by the Canucks on Thursday, told reporters on Zoom after the team closed its media interview room. “They don’t want it again. And that’s why we’re trying to move on this as quickly as we can and be as cautious as we can.”

All Canucks players and staff are fully vaccinated, but early studies on Omicron suggest it is highly transmissible and less susceptible to vaccines than other variants.

The Canucks may have been caught on the weekend in a COVID triangulation with the Calgary Flames and Carolina Hurricanes.

Three more Flames players went into COVID protocol on Tuesday, raising to 10 the number of players and staff who have tested positive. Calgary’s games have been cancelled through at least Thursday. Two members of the Hurricanes went into protocol on Monday.

Carolina visited Calgary on Saturday, then played the Canucks on Sunday at Rogers Arena.

Winners of four straight games since Travis Green was fired as coach and Jim Benning as general manager on Dec. 5, the Canucks are supposed to leave Wednesday for a road game against the San Jose Sharks.

“We live in a different world, and we all have to make adjustments to it,” Rutherford said. “So we’re all reminding everybody to follow the proper protocols that are set out by the league. It’s not fun, but it’s the hand we’re dealt with.”

With Lammikko and Schenn out, the Canucks recalled minor-league forward Phil Di Giuseppe. To make room for him under the salary cap, the team placed injured defenceman Travis Hamonic on long-term injured reserve.

Rutherford said Hamonic, who did not play the last two games, is unlikely to be ready to play before his minimum 10-game LTIR absence elapses.

– With files from Nikitha Martins