Bruins’ Wednesday game vs. Ottawa postponed as league announces new changes

Just when we thought the Bruins might be getting back to action, eh?

On Sunday night, the NHL announced that Wednesday’s scheduled Bruins vs. Senators game has been postponed due to “COVID-related reasons.”

The Bruins had several guys leave COVID protocol over the holiday break, but had Charlie Coyle enter it over the weekend.

My guess (completely uneducated) is that there still may be concerns about cross-border travel and potential positives, but it could just be that Ottawa (or the Bruins, for that matter) had additional positives crop up.

The postponement announcements were buried in part of a larger COVID-related update from the league and the NHLPA, which included:

• The creation of taxi squads, which will last from now through each team’s last game before the scheduled All-Star Game break; taxi squads can have up to six players, but no player can spend more than 20 consecutive days on the squad.
• Teams that are really strapped due to COVID, whether at goalie or other positions, will be able to recall players immediately instead of playing shorthanded (a CBA change).

Admittedly, that second bullet is a little unclear to me, but you can read the full details on the NHL website.

This is probably the kind of stuff we’re going to be dealing with for the next several weeks — tweaks here and there, postponements, adjustments on the fly, etc.

It’s just the world we live in.

The Bruins’ next game is now scheduled for New Year’s Day, a matinee at home against the Buffalo Sabres.

Assuming that one goes on as scheduled, it’ll be more than two weeks between games for the B’s.

Hey, it’s just like the beginning of the season!