‘Rolling with the punches’: Golden Knights continue to adjust to season plagued by virus

By Justin Emerson

Friday, Feb. 26, 2021 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights spent Wednesday morning preparing for the San Jose Sharks. They were on the ice at City National Arena with plans to board a plane to San Jose that afternoon, get a skate in Thursday morning and take on the Sharks that night.

Instead, word came down shortly after the practice that the game was postponed after a Sharks player, later revealed to be forward Tomas Hertl, had entered league COVID-19 protocols. The Golden Knights stayed home and practiced Thursday with eyes on the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.

Already this year the Golden Knights have had at least one player and coach test positive, had to cancel multiple practices and postpone three games. Moving Thursday’s game is just another data point in an ever-growing list of reasons this season is unlike any other.

“Well, now we’ve been on the side of getting COVID and having the other team get COVID, so we’re just rolling with the punches honestly,” forward Alex Tuch said. “It’s nothing that anyone can control too much, and obviously we’re still in a pandemic and life is going to be a lot more difficult than it usually is.”

It was the 36th NHL game postponed because of the virus this season and fourth involving the Golden Knights. In an ironic twist, Thursday’s game against the Sharks was a makeup game for one postponed earlier in the month.

For the first time in a while, the Golden Knights are currently free of the virus. Center Tomas Nosek, whose positive test for the virus came back during the second intermission of the Feb. 9 game, returned to practice this week after spending two weeks in the league’s protocols. The Golden Knights have a few players injured, but have none on the “COVID Protocol Related Absences” list.

The team was upbeat Thursday at practice, even if it wished it was in San Jose playing the Sharks, and found some positives in not playing since Monday in Colorado.

“With the game postponement, it’s going to allow guys to recover a little bit,” Tuch said. “It’s going to allow us to practice a little bit more and get some more of the kinks out now that we have to concentrate on Anaheim instead of San Jose.”

Indeed, the Golden Knights were short three payers for practice Thursday: forward Reilly Smith and goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Robin Lehner. While Lehner’s injury has been ongoing for a few weeks, the absences allowed Smith and Fleury time to heal from bumps and bruises.

Smith took a stick to the face in Monday’s game and has not been seen at practice since, although he skated on his own Thursday before the team joined. Coach Pete DeBoer said he likely would have been available had there been a game.

Fleury has played the last seven games with Lehner out of commission and has been spectacular. Not playing Thursday allowed him to take a breather instead of taking on the Sharks in a rivalry game.

“For sure it’s a luxury,” DeBoer said of the extra practice time. “The flip side of that is when we’re going to pay the bill for this at a later point with them jamming our schedule with some of the makeup games.”

While Saturday’s game against the Ducks will be just Vegas’ third in 11 days, it starts a brutal sprint to the end of the season with 39 games in 71 days. That doesn’t include a makeup date for Thursday’s postponement, which has not been announced.

For the rest of the year, Vegas has just two instances where it has more than one day without a game at a time, and that could change if the Sharks game is placed in one of those windows.

So the Golden Knights are enjoying their time off without games for now. Because it’s going to be a while before they have that time again.