Citing COVID-19 Testing ‘Discrepancies,’ NHL Says Impacted Teams Can Still Play

On Wednesday, the St. Louis Blues and Vegas Golden Knights had to be retested for COVID-19 after the NHL received potential false positives on Tuesday, according to ESPN.

The Blues had three players on the NHL’s COVID-19-related absence list on Tuesday — David Perron, Jake Walman, and Nathan Walker.

Doug Armstrong, the Blues president of hockey operations and general manager, released a statement discussing the situation:

We have discovered discrepancies in COVID test results relating to multiple players. We have been in touch with and are working with the league to address these discrepancies with additional testing and expect to have further information later this afternoon. The league will provide a further update when we gave more information.

St. Louis will play game two of their series against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night as they look to even the series at 1-1. The Golden Knights play the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, looking to go up 2-1 in the series. On Wednesday, the NHL released a statement regarding the positive COVID-19 tests:

This morning, we became aware of certain test results involving multiple Players on two Clubs (the St. Louis Blues and the Vegas Golden Knights) that had indicated positive results for the COVID-19 virus. Because those reported results emanated from the same laboratory, and due to other peculiarities and similarities as among the test results themselves, an investigation was initiated into the possibility that the initial test results reported may have been in error. All affected Players were immediately isolated and further testing was done involving collected samples. Those tests have returned uniformly negative results, therefore confirming that the initial reported tests were in error. As a result, all affected Players will be eligible to play their team’s next game.

The @NHL today released the following statement on COVID-19 test results for the @StLouisBlues and @GoldenKnights. https://t.co/YpTBl0x4ZS pic.twitter.com/uC0vgU6JnH

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 19, 2021

Unlike the previous postseason, the Stanley Cup Playoffs are not taking place in a so-called “COVID-19 bubble,” even though testing is still consistent. In May, the NHL announced the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions for U.S. teams that have at least 85% of their traveling party vaccinated.

The NBA Playoffs are also underway, with the league’s first play-in tournament kicking off on Tuesday night. And, like the NHL, the league is dealing with their own COVID-19-related issues.

Indiana Pacers guard Caris LeVert missed Tuesday night’s play-in game against the Charlotte Hornets due to the league’s health and safety protocol.

“I talked to him on the phone earlier today. Like I said, he’s hurt. He’s crushed,” Pacers coach Nate Bjorkgren said of LeVert, according to ESPN. “He wants to be out there, especially with all he’s gone through this year with the trade and the surgery and not joining us until after the All-Star break. And how he’s been playing, he’s been playing great. … He was really gearing up and going to be ready for this one. We’re going to miss him. He feels bad [that he can’t play]. We just gotta keep moving forward.”

LeVert will be out for the next 10 to 14 days in accordance with the NBA’s COVID-19 guidelines.

Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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