Coach Bruce Cassidy is still figuring out the right balance between extra practice and rest to fill the time over the weekend. Charles Krupa/Associated Press
After playing every other night for the past two weeks, the Bruins may not have been completely brokenhearted upon hearing that their Saturday-Monday series against the Buffalo Sabres scheduled for TD Garden was postponed because of virus protocol issues.
But they know they will have to pay the piper at some point when those games get rescheduled, and it will no doubt make the already hectic schedule even more so.
“Probably right now we’d say it helps just to get a little bit of a rest, but then I’m sure whenever these games are put back in the schedule, we’ll be (wishing) that we’d already played them,” said Bruins forward Chris Wagner. “It’s a double-edged sword, really. It’s just the weird scenario we’re in and we just have to take it day-by-day.”
Coach Bruce Cassidy was still figuring out the right balance between extra practice and rest to fill the time over the weekend when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday afternoon. He was contemplating giving the team both Saturday and Sunday off, especially with some of his veterans in mind. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to upset the rehab schedule of some of his injured players — Matt Grzelcyk and Jake DeBrusk have both begun skating in Boston after suffering lower body injuries —and he also wants to keep in shape some of the extra players the team is carrying this year who haven’t seen much playing time.
With the protocol issues in New Jersey flaring up, Cassidy was not surprised something like this happened.
“Honestly, the way you saw what happened with New Jersey and knowing they just played Buffalo, you knew that probably something might be in the works,” said Cassidy. “Hopefully this curtails it and people get healthy, because there’s been a few shutdowns now. It started in the south and hopefully this takes care of any future spread or concerns. After that, who knows? You saw it in football where you saw some rescheduling, same in baseball and basketball. So it’s not surprising it hit us.”
Cassidy, no doubt with his fingers crossed, said he feels that his players are doing all the right things with regard to following the protocols.
“From what I’ve seen, we’re taking it seriously,” said Cassidy. “The one thing I don’t understand is how some teams have completely closed down and canceled and other teams, like Chicago, had five or six guys on their list yet they keep playing —and other teams keep playing through. I don’t know exactly how that part of it works. But you’d hate to be that team that has to keep playing if you lose four or five of your guys, especially if they’re important players for you and you get behind the 8-ball. That’s been the messaging for us, that you could hurt the team. I think it could happen to anybody, especially for people with kids, if you’re kids are at school and interacting in sports, etc. But you do what you can to minimize the risk and I feel our guys have done that.”
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