The Bruins continue to get hit with a hard dose of reality when it comes to trying to restart pro sports in the middle of a pandemic.
David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase missed practice for the fifth time this week on Saturday, but now they have some company. Tuukka Rask, Torey Krug, David Krejci, Charlie Coyle, Sean Kuraly, Nick Ritchie and Chris Wagner were all absent from Saturday's practice as well.
There was a small silver lining, as Joakim Nordstrom returned to practice after missing Friday's.
Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said after practice that none of those who missed Saturday suffered any injuries and that all he can say, per league protocols, is that they're "unfit to participate."
"That's kind of what you're starting to see happen every day," Cassidy said. "We had no injuries to speak of, so again, unfit to play. The league has asked us to continue along that line for the respect and privacy of the players, so that's what we're doing."
Cassidy did note that there are a number of different reasons why a player might be deemed "unfit to participate" and that people shouldn't jump to any conclusions about it meaning positive tests.
"There's always different reasons," he said. "There's the quarantine rules. There's waiting on test results. There's a number of different things that factor into this. It doesn't automatically assume we have a positive test. (Assistant coach) Kevin Dean had to miss a couple days. He was in the vicinity of someone who tested positive, so on the safe side we kept him away. There's a little bit of that going on this week. We want to get to Toronto as healthy as possible."
On Friday, Pastrnak's agent revealed that the reason he was missing practices was that he had come in contact with someone who tested positive, and that Pastrnak himself had not tested positive.
Because of the way the NHL's return to play protocols were negotiated, any information about why players are "unfit to participate" will only come out with the player's approval, which is what happened with Pastrnak.
Cassidy, who is generally more open with the media than most coaches, said he would welcome more players doing that if they want to, as it makes his job easier and clears up speculation.
"'Unfit to participate' is a league directive, for everything," he said. "I've tried to be upfront in the past. We're trying to protect the players. They collectively bargained that to come back, so if they want to put out there any information about why they're not at practice, yeah, makes my life easier. Then I'm not asked. Sometimes I don't know what happened to each and every individual through their testing and what they were told, how long to quarantine. I get a pretty good idea, but it seems to differ between players.
"So Pasta's agent, good. There's probably a lot of conversation about it, speculation, rightfully so. You don't get answers, you're going to speculate. That's what we've opened ourselves up to with the players. So him coming out, kind of puts a nail in the coffin whether he tested positive, because he didn't."
Sunday was originally a scheduled off day for the whole team, but Cassidy said that if any of the nine players who missed Saturday's practice are cleared for Sunday, they will skate in a small group. Everyone who did skate Saturday will still have the day off, and the next full-team practice will be Monday.
Cassidy said that despite the growing list of absences, he is still fairly happy with where the team is right now. They are now a day behind in terms of holding a full-team scrimmage, though. That was originally scheduled for Saturday, but had to be pushed back because of the number of players missing. Cassidy said he hopes to have that Monday or Tuesday, but that it will depend on how many guys get cleared to return by then.
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