Penguins coach Mike Sullivan endorses new covid-19 protocols

On Wednesday, the NHL announced changes to its protocols for covid-19 and lowered the isolation time for individuals who tested positive for the virus in certain conditions.

The change, which mirrors recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calls for an isolation period of five days instead of 10.

These alterations to the protocols only apply to teams in the United States. Canada’s federal government still has stricter regulations in place.

The NHL’s new guidelines will be in place for 14 days and will be reviewed by the NHL and NHL Players’ Association afterward.

Players, coaches and staff who test positive for covid-19 may emerge from isolation after five days if symptoms have gone or are resolving themselves along with a negative PCR test or two negative rapid test results taken more than two hours apart.

The development was welcomed news to Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, who has eight players in the league’s protocols for the virus.

“With everything that’s come out with respect to the CDC’s guidelines and their (adjustment of) their protocols and their recommendations, for me, it makes sense,” Sullivan said Wednesday before the league officially announced the changes. “I just have to believe and trust that the medical community is going to advise us as they learn more with what they’re dealing with.

“The interesting part of this is … most of our guys, for the most part, are asymptomatic. I don’t know if that means that they could potentially spend less time in the covid protocols (or) would they have the ability to test out of it, things like that. I know all these things are being discussed at the league level. We’ll just follow the guidelines that they give us. But for me, the fact that the CDC came out and adjusted their recommendations, I think, would suggest that the rest of us would follow their lead.”

Riikola returns

Defenseman Juuso Riikola was summoned from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL) on Tuesday and designated to the Penguins’ taxi squad. With a handful of the team’s incumbent defensemen in protocols for covid-19, he seems to be a possibility to return to the team’s lineup for its next scheduled game, a home contest against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday.

Even with how chaotic the NHL’s operations have been the past two weeks, Riikola professes his mindset has been pretty consistent ever since the league was first disrupted by the pandemic in March of 2020.

“I would say, the last two years, it’s almost been the same, day to day, how all the things go,” Riikola said. “There is some (covid-19) cases coming up. Guys coming back. New guys, other guys getting opportunities to play. Whenever you get the chance, you’re ready to play. I don’t think (about) that too much, the last couple of days. It’s all the time, the situation we are in right now. Everybody needs to be ready to play.”

Having not played any NHL games since Nov. 13, he appears ready for the chance to do so Sunday.

In five NHL contests this season, Riikola has one assist and averaged 13 minutes, 23 seconds of ice time. He acknowledges there is plenty of room for improvement.

“There was some good stuff,” Riikola said. “And definitely some things you can do better. … There was some good and some not that good.”