The Penguins will have an early holiday break and so will every other NHL team. The NHL has pulled the chute on all games until after Christmas. Players will return on Sunday for testing. This is a result of the increasing cases of COVID spreading throughout multiple teams. Rather than deal with this on every team they are hoping the pause helps hit the reset button.

The overwhelming majority of the players are vaccinated which puts them at less risk of dangerous consequences if they catch the virus. The new Omicron strand is potentially more contagious, but lacking the teeth of some of the other strands. My prediction is if this is true the league will probably do away with testing unless players are symptomatic. Something Steve Yzerman suggested in a press conference the other day. Later today when the President speaks my guess is that he will say something along the lines of pushing vaccinations and not shutdowns. The country has no appetite for shutdowns after close to 19 months after this began. Perhaps things play out differently, but that’s how I see it shaking out.

The Penguins are currently on quite a winning streak and a lot of times it wouldn’t be great to go on a break while on a winning streak. This is an exception. Buying time for Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, and Bryan Rust isn’t a bad thing. Malkin is getting very close to returning and the other two are skating. The Penguins didn’t have COVID running rampant through the NHL club so this is just a straight up rest.

As for making up the games the NHL is planning on using the Olympic break built into the season which of course puts a nail in the coffin of the NHL’s participation in said tournament. I love Olympic hockey. I think it is more than worth the break. It is a unique thing which doesn’t happen all that often. I love best on best international tournaments in all sports. Maybe the solution to this problem moving forward is to have hockey be in both the Winter and Summer Olympics. The Winter Olympics can be for amateurs and other non-NHL players while the Summer Olympics can be for NHL players. It seems weird, but the logistics would be way easier to navigate in the summer for NHL players. Not sure why anybody would complain about more hockey.

I know this it is a real bummer we won’t see Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, and Nathan MacKinnon team up for Canada while all three are still really good. I am bummed we have never really been able to see what an Auston Matthews/Jack Eichel led USA team do in a best on best competition. I was looking way more forward to this than some random Tuesday NHL game in February. It is what it is.

Thanks for reading!

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