It is still unclear whether a suspended unvaccinated player will count against his team’s salary cap during the suspension – and other COVID-related roster implications remain a work in progress.
“We’re optimistic that we can utilize the [normal] roster rules but we’ll adjust if we need to. We’re hoping to have enough available players that clubs will be able to fill as they need in the normal way,” Daly said. “Having said that, we’ve been in communication with our general managers, they were a little bit concerned about the issue. What we’ve said is let’s see how training camp goes. Let’s see where we are and let’s see how many players are getting infected, or [if] there is a breakthrough in infections.”
Feedback from NHL GMs indicated that they are most concerned about the availability of a third goaltender, should one of their team’s netminders gets sick or gets hurt.
“That would be the first area of concern that we’d look to address, possibly creating some kind of taxi squad for goaltenders,” Daly said. “Again, we’ll see how training camp plays out and what our experience is there and whether adjustments need to be made. One of the best things we’ve done is we’ve been very flexible and able to adapt to the circumstances that face us and we don’t make decisions too early. Sometimes, it’s excruciatingly slow, but part of that is making sure that we can gather to make important decisions, and I think we’ve been successful in doing that.”
SERAVALLI: NHL projects 98% of players will be fully vaccinated this season - Daily Faceoff
Be ready to add another section
@caley.
