Neely: Pastrnak and Kase likely won’t practice again until Toronto

Bruins President Cam Neely had his turn before the virtually assembled media earlier today, answering questions from reporters via Zoom.

Understandably, the main topic of discussion continues to be the statuses of David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase, who haven’t practiced with the team in a week.

With the NHL’s new “unfit” policy, it’s unlikely that we’re going to get too many details on either’s absence.

However, Mike Loftus of the Patriot Ledger asked Neely more specifically if we’d see either of those two guys before the team heads to Toronto — and the answer appears to be “no.”

“It’s hard to say right now,” Neely said. “My best guess would be Toronto...there’s hopes [for] before we leave, but my best guess would be Toronto.”

If you do the math, it makes sense.

Pastrnak and Kase were with the team last Wednesday, July 15. This means that any quarantine couldn’t have started until July 16. Given that a two-week quarantine is expected, that would put both guys at July 30.

The Bruins are slated to play an exhibition game against Columbus on that date, and are expected to fly to Toronto to enter their bubble on July 26.

So...yeah. There’s no way a two-week quarantine would end before the players leave, making it unlikely that either joins the team for a regular practice in Boston.

In response to a question from NBC Sports Boston’s Joe Haggerty about whether or not he wishes either guy had made better choices, Neely said:

“We had the date for when camp was starting and knew some players may need to quarantine when they get here...you kind of hope they’d get here a little earlier, but we didn’t really have much say in that. It was really left up to the players.”

“Obviously with what’s played out and transpired, you certainly would have hoped there’s some different decisions made,” he continued. “But in the long run, I don’t know really if it’s going to affect us once we get into Toronto.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement from the President, but one also assumes that there have already been conversations behind closed doors about how to move on from these minor indiscretions.

Neely also addressed the people who think this year’s Stanley Cup should come with an asterisk due to the situation, and he agreed — with a twist.

“When I hear people say...this Stanley Cup should have an asterisk next to it, I think there’s maybe something that’s true to that,” he said. “Only because of how difficult and how mentally challenging it’s going to be.”

So not like a Fake Stanley Cup, but more like a Super Stanley Cup.

We’re sure that the winning team will agree, and all of the other fanbases will call the Cup win tainted.

Sports! They’re fun.