On Thursday, the NHL announced that Phase 2 of its Return to Play plan will kick off on Monday, June 8.
This is the stage that was covered by that exhaustive 22-page memo that was released a couple of weeks ago, with the small-group workouts of no more than six players at a time and extensive Covid-19 testing and self-isolation protocols.
Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic did a rundown of all 24 teams' plans on Friday morning, with only a handful looking to be open by Monday.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are reportedly starting with testing on Saturday and will do team medicals on Monday, then get back on the ice at their practice facility on Tuesday. The Philadelphia Flyers have also announced that they're opening their training facility on Monday.
A number of other teams have also indicated that they'll look to open over the next one to two weeks, depending on how many players want to take part.
LeBrun reported that the Canucks currently have just three players in town, and wouldn't be looking to open Rogers Arena until June 12 at the earliest.
Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet provided more details later on Friday.
He said that Alex Edler, Chris Tanev and Troy Stecher are the only active Canucks players who are still in town, and that Josh Leivo has also stuck around to get treatment on the kneecap that he fractured back in December.
And, as expected, with nearly half the team's players currently outside of Canada, there isn't much appetite to return while the national 14-day quarantine remains in place.
There seems to be some hope that the restriction will get lifted or tweaked when the current order expires, around the third week of June — perhaps that players could be permitted to train immediately upon their return to Canada if the facility and their living space was treated as a 'collective bubble,' if you will.
B.C. is now being held up as a model region in how health authorities have handled the pandemic, keeping numbers down while still allowing us a reasonable degree of freedom. Dr. Bonnie Henry said this week that if the numbers continue to trend in a positive direction, she's hoping to take a vacation within the province within the next month or so. If she's willing to approve a 'hockey bubble,' then maybe that idea works.
The good thing about Phase 2 is that there are no hard-and-fast deadlines yet to get the players together. Many of them are now skating at private facilities — and Benning told MacIntyre that is the case for the three Canucks players who are in town.
The critical date will be the beginning of training camp. Right now, we know that won't be before July 10. If the league hits that target and Canucks players do need to come back to Vancouver and quarantine, the crucial return date would be June 26 — the day of the draft lottery.
But before that start date can be pinned down, the league will need to hammer out the rest of the details of the agreement with the NHL Players' Association — and there will be even more involved than there was in the Phase 2 document.
As if that's not hard enough,
Elliotte Friedman reported in his abbreviated '31 Thoughts' this week that "there are plenty of rumours that the NHL and NHLPA are working hard on a CBA extension, with multiple sources indicating there is a legit attempt to get something done by the time play resumes."
With so much uncertainty ahead, it sounds like there's an appetite from both sides to try to find a way to create as stable an environment as possible for the next few years — perhaps with a flat salary cap for the next few seasons combined with a promise that escrow on players' salaries would be capped at a guaranteed maximum. Friedman also mentions health care as a concern, which makes sense. A 'Covid Clause' will almost certainly be required to cover players who find that their long-term health ends up being impacted if they contract the virus.
Plenty of huge issues.
The good news is that the NBA and MLS have now finalized details of their returns to action. Though the NHL was first off the starting blocks, now the league has the advantage of being able to refer to how other leagues are handling sensitive issues as they move closer to pinning things down.
And as Jim Benning mentioned a couple of weeks ago, another option for the Canucks would be to hold their training camp in the U.S. If they are going to be assigned to a hub city south of the border, there isn't much sense in going to the trouble of convening everybody in Canada, just to leave again.
At this point, there's no ice in Rogers Arena. "Benning noted that there are stringent guidelines under Phase 2 of the NHL’s return-to-play protocol, including testing and monitoring procedures for COVID-19, that make it impractical for the Canucks to re-open Rogers Arena for only a handful of players," wrote MacIntyre.
As far as the other five Canadian clubs who hope to play this summer? According to LeBrun:
• Calgary: still in planning stages
• Edmonton: hoping to open as soon as Monday; about five players in town
• Winnipeg: not expecting a bunch of players to come in, but thinking about opening late next week
• Toronto: around 20 players in town; hoping to open early next week
• Montreal: 3 players in town; hoping to open practice facility by mid-week
And the Canucks' preliminary-round opponent, the Minnesota Wild? The club reportedly has just 4-6 players in town, and isn't looking at opening its facility "until June 22 or so." So it doesn't sound like the Canucks will be falling behind with respect to their rival.
Earlier on Friday, MacIntyre also posted a story on Chris Tanev, which is well worth a read.
While he's been here in Vancouver, MacIntyre says that Tanev has been "skating with Stecher, hiking with Edler" — and missing the young teammates that he has been feeding and mentoring over the last couple of seasons — Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson.
“I’ve done this new spaghetti squash dish with sausage and kale that has turned out quite nice,” Tanev said. “It’s healthy and fills you up quite nicely. It’s got a little kick if you like some spice.
“But Petey has been taking up cooking and it looks like he might be better than me. He’s putting some good dishes together. I’m going to go over to his house (to eat).”
With that kind of mentoring role, it's no wonder that Jim Benning is talking about trying to figure out a way to bring impending UFA Tanev back next season.
"There are guys who really help other players along, and I would say Chris Tanev is one of those guys," Benning said. "I think he’s a good leader and our younger players look up to him. He was an excellent mentor to Quinn Hughes. On the ice, they played really well together. I think they help each other."
For his part, Tanev still seems like the same low-key guy who cobbled an NHL career out of nothing when he was signed by Vancouver as an unheralded free agent after one year of college — ready to play this summer, ready to accept whatever comes his way, contract-wise, and ready to stay in Vancouver if at all possible.
“You have to deal with what gets thrown your way,” Tanev said. “As I’ve said, this is something that hasn’t happened in 100 years. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic and…the guys who are unrestricted free agents this year, it’s going to be a tough market.
“I’ve been here now for 10 years and I’ve loved every minute of it,” Tanev said. “There’s definitely a trust between me and management and the ownership group, which has been awesome to me. Whether it’s one year or many years (on the next contract), I’d love to play my whole career here. Who knows what’s going to happen? But I love it here, I want to stay here, I think the team is going in the right direction and if we come back to play this year, I think we’re going to have a real good shot at competing and going far. I’d like to be part of that in the future.”
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