Senators Deal With Covid Outbreak Ahead Of Game Against Bruins

Due to a Covid outbreak within the team over the weekend and that carried into Monday morning, the Ottawa Senators canceled their practice Monday morning before flying to Boston for their game with the Bruins Tuesday night at TD Garden.

“It happens, it’s unfortunate and it’s a global pandemic,” Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith told the media via Zoom Monday morning. “I was looking at the numbers yesterday, there’s one in six in the United States that get it and it’s one in eight in Canada at the moment. It’s not ideal. It’s an opportunity for someone else if guys are out and show what they can do.”

Ottawa Senators winger Austin Watson, defenseman Nick Holden, and associate coach Jack Capuano were placed in COVID-19 protocol this past weekend. Then on Monday morning, forwards Connor Brown and Dylan Gambrell were added to the COIVD-19 protocol list as well. Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion later announced that the team has recalled forwards Egor Sokolov and Scott Sabourin. As of noon Monday, Brown, and Gambrell had not been confirmed positive or negative but won’t play against the Bruins and remained back in Ottawa as a precaution. They’re still eligible to play in the team’s game with the Los Angeles Kings back in Ottawa on Thursday.

The Ottawa Senators do not yet know the source of this current COVID outbreak but they did just return from their first road trip within the United States that had extended downtime between games.

“Pierre [Dorion] spoke to the group at length before we left on the trip,” Smith said. “That’s the first time we’ve been to the States since March 2020 and everyone understood. It’s hard to pinpoint where it starts, and how it starts, but it happens. We’re not going to put blame on people. That’s not anyone’s intention. It happens. We don’t know where it started, but it did, and now we have to deal with it and we’ll get through it.”