Penguins reflect on a year since the NHL paused for covid-19

Mike Matheson was in a much different place exactly one year ago.

Dallas, to be specific.

Then a member of the Florida Panthers, Matheson was in his Dallas hotel room watching the Dallas Mavericks host the Denver Nuggets. And that’s when he realized the world was rapidly changing.

During the game, the NBA announced it would be suspending its season indefinitely because of covid-19.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave a frank interview about the state of his sport as well as society in general at the dawn of a global pandemic that has altered seemingly every walk of life.

That’s when Matheson, now a member of the Penguins defense, realized his sport would soon follow suit. By the next day, the NHL announced it would be suspending play.

“It was weird. We were still expecting to play our game somehow,” Matheson said of the Panther’s scheduled road game against the Dallas Stars for March 11, 2020. “I don’t know why that made any sense at the time. But obviously, we woke up the next morning and were told different. But yeah, it’s pretty crazy to think it’s been a year since we’ve been going through this.”

As for the Penguins, they were in Columbus when they got word of the NHL’s pause. Coming off an impressive 5-2 road win against the New Jersey Devils on March 10, they were gearing up to play the Blue Jackets, their former Metropolitan Division rivals.

It was an important game for each team. Despite the win in New Jersey, the Penguins had struggled over the previous three weeks, going 3-8-0 while the Blue Jackets were duking it out with the Carolina Hurricanes for fourth place in the division.

It never happened.

“All I remember is us going to a pregame skate against Columbus,” goaltender Tristan Jarry said. “From there, we went home. We basically went home to our summer cities after that. Then we really didn’t hear much.”

“There was some word that we weren’t going to have fans the following night for our game,” forward Sidney Crosby said. “Then in the morning is obviously when things started to get canceled and shut down. At that point, I didn’t expect that it would have been what it turned into. I don’t know if anyone could have predicted that. It’s amazing that’s it’s been almost a year now”

Four-and-a-half months later, the NHL was able to complete the 2019-20 season with an unprecedented postseason tournament that was staged in quarantined “bubbles” in Toronto and Edmonton throughout August and September.

By early January, teams opened training camps for the 2020-21 campaign, albeit under very different conditions with a 56-game schedule strictly against opponents from the same division, and with dramatically realigned divisions because of travel restrictions. Within the past week, the Penguins have begun to play in front of fans, albeit limited to 15% capacity, for the first time since March 2020.

“It’s been a wild year since then,” forward Evan Rodrigues said. “It’s nice to be playing hockey again. It’s nice to have fans back in the stands the past few games. Things are starting to turn. Hopefully, they continue to get better over the next few months and everyone gets past this.”

Said Matheson: “As crazy long as this past year has felt, it almost went by quickly, too. It’s hard to believe that it has been a year that we’ve been doing this and been in this new environment. … A lot has happened. But I think we’re pretty lucky to have gone through so much and still have the opportunity to play hockey and get this season in. We’re lucky to be able to wake up and do what we do every day.”