With the NHL forcing teams to categorize any player's absence with the catch-all "unfit to play" terminology, there are going to be few answers and lots of speculation.
And so it is that the digging and theorizing regarding Bruins forwards David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase has begun. The pair of right-wingers, both of whom spent their breaks at home in the Czech Republic before returning to Boston, have now missed all four full-team practices the Bruins have held this week. They both got on the ice for limited skates at Warrior Ice Arena on Wednesday while most of the team had the day off.
All coach Bruce Cassidy has been able to say is that they have been deemed "unfit to play." Naturally, people have been searching for more information.
Perhaps some more information has been discovered, or perhaps it's nothing. A couple uncomfirmed rumors and photos have surfaced on social media and the Bruins Reddit channel suggesting that Pastrnak and Kase were out in the North End sometime recently, and also that they were working out at a local, non-team-owned rink.
Cassidy was asked about both Friday, first addressing the possible workouts.
"If the league allows them to work out on their own, I'm OK with them getting their conditioning to where it needs to be," he said. "What are the parameters of it? Are they near people who are at risk? Are they social distancing? Are they doing it the right way? That's the term we use: Doing it the right way to prepare yourself. Then I'm OK with it.
"If they're not, and they put themselves in harm's way, then obviously that's not a good thing. I don't want to judge Pasta or Kase without knowing all the facts of what happened before they got here. I know they traveled from Europe, like a lot of guys. They had to quarantine, or separate from the team, or have X amount of negative tests. If it's just about having negative tests and they're allowed to go about they're business, then they're allowed to go about their business. If they weren't supposed to, then they shouldn't have been doing it."
Cassidy made it clear that Pastrnak and Kase's absences aren't related to any sort of discipline.
"No. This isn't personal discipline against those two guys," he said. "If anything, when you're out that line, you have to go almost the other way and get them up to speed. That's not the case. We're not disciplining anybody right now on our team for any individual action. This is unfit to participate right now. I would love to tell you something different or better, but that's what they're listed as right now.
"...I have not been told they've been disciplined by the National Hockey League," Cassidy added. "I don't know what would have been the parameters for when they came back from Europe. There is protocol in place that you have to have X amount of negative tests. Sometimes those tests come back quicker than others, until you can return to the ice. We've had a number of guys go through that. I couldn't get in the rink. The coaching staff couldn't. So it's not just unique to the players. That was put into a place. So there could've been a situation where they were going through that process too. I honestly don't know. If they're out in the North End, again, we've asked all our players, each and every one, common sense and try to do the right thing as much as possible so you don't put yourself or your teammates at risk."
Fair or not, this kind of speculation and these kinds of questions are going to be inevitable when all anyone can say is "unfit to participate."
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