With the Canucks forced to put their season on pause as the result of a COVID-19 outbreak within the organization, the schedule was surely going to be impacted by it. The NHL announced on Saturday those changes and they impact three Leafs games.
These changes are as follows:
- Toronto @ Vancouver on April 19th, originally scheduled for 10 p.m., will now start at 9 p.m.
- Vancouver @ Toronto, originally scheduled for April 30th, has been moved to April 29th at 7:30 p.m.
- Toronto @ Ottawa, originally scheduled for May 10th, has been moved to May 12th at 7:30 p.m.
When looking at the new tweaks to the schedule, the most obvious is the ending of the Leafs’ regular season being pushed back an additional two days. They were initially supposed to have their season conclude on May 8th against the Canadiens, but this further delays when they will commence the postseason. Meaning there is a potential scenario where the East, Central, and West Divisions will have their playoffs start a few days ahead of when the North Division would begin theirs.
Much like how the pandemic has gone the past year, things can evolve quickly so there’s no guarantee these changes will stick.
At the time of writing, 19 Canucks remain on COVID protocol in spite of the team planning on opening up their facilities tomorrow and their season resuming on April 16th. But this is where things stand for the time being so let’s hope they remain that way for the remainder of the campaign.
