The Philadelphia Flyers’ Tuesday night game scheduled against the COVID-shortened New York Islanders was postponed by the NHL after an eighth member of the team tested positive for the virus.
Islanders president and general manager Lou Lamoriello announced that Casey Cizikas was the eighth member of the team — joining Josh Bailey, Anders Lee, Adam Pelech, Andy Greene, Zdeno Chara, Ross Johnston, and Kieffer Bellows — to enter league COVID protocols.
On top of that, the team lost top defenseman Ryan Pulock and second-line center, Brock Nelson, to injury, forcing the Islanders to play with half of their opening-night roster on the shelf.
Regardless of their roster issues exacerbated by COVID, the NHL allowed the Islanders to play four games at UBS Arena — all losses — as their losing streak extended to eight games. They sit eight points behind the sixth-place Flyers with two games in hand in the Metropolitan Division.
While reports suggested that Lamoriello went to the NHL and asked for postponements, the Hall of Fame executive shut down such a notion.
“I have never asked for games to be postponed,” Lamoriello said. “The league over the past couple of years certainly has invested in the best infectious disease medical doctors available. Both the union and the league, plus their own physicians. We have to trust their decisions, what goes into these decisions, what statistics allow them to make these conclusions.
“I’m not privy to that. All we can do is respond to those decisions.”
The Islanders will now have to turn in negative tests for three straight days before they can return to the ice and begin practicing.
Their game Thursday at UBS Arena against the San Jose Sharks is still up in the air.
“I have to practice what I preach. What we have no control of, you can’t be distracted by and all you can do is just stay focused on what you do have control of,” Lamoriello said. “Our coaching staff has done that, we asked our players to do that, and they’ve done a tremendous job over those set of circumstances.
“Right now, all we can do is take a step back and use these three days and get prepared for our next practice and our next game.”
For the Flyers, they’ll get a sizable break after Sunday night’s game against the New Jersey Devils. They’ll next take the ice on Wednesday against the Rangers.
A version of this article first appeared on AMNY.com
