NHL delays return by at least a day

The NHL won’t be playing on Monday, the league announced last night. From the NHL release:

The National Hockey League announced today that its regular-season schedule will not resume prior to Tuesday, Dec. 28. The League had planned to resume its schedule on Dec. 27, but in order to allow the League an adequate opportunity to analyze League-wide testing results and to assess Clubs’ readiness to play, the target date for resumption of game play will be pushed back an additional day. Teams will return to practice on Dec. 26 and it is expected that the League will provide an update on its return to play plans by the end of day on Sunday.

That means no Penguins vs Bruins game on Monday night. The Pens will return to practice tomorrow and then everyone will be waiting to see what COVID test results say after the league had most of the last week to themselves and their families to take time for the holidays.

Now that the NHL has officially opted out of 2022 Olympic play, they have a lot of runway left with a regular season scheduled to finish near the end of April and now three weeks in February of open dates to reschedule games. So far, for Pittsburgh that will mean making up games against New Jersey, Philadelphia and now Boston.