BUFFALO, N.Y. — The NHL will emerge from an extended holiday break with taxi squads and other roster revisions to guard against more disruptions to the season.
Each team will be allowed to have a taxi squad of up to six players and to make emergency recalls from the minors if COVID-19 absences would cause anyone to play without a full lineup. The taxi squad is set to be in effect until at least the All-Star break in early February.
Meanwhile, several players and coaches went into COVID-19 protocol Sunday as teams returned to their facilities.
All 14 games slated for Monday were previously postponed, with the season scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
The news came hours after the Sabres announced that head coach Don Granato and two more players have entered COVID-19 protocol.
Forwards Mark Jankowski and Dylan Cozens were added to the list along with Vinnie Hinostroza, Jeff Skinner and Zemgus Girgensons, who tested positive before the shutdown.
The Sabres had three games postponed before Christmas because of COVID-19 outbreaks on other teams. The league shut down for the holiday break early and originally planned to resume on Monday, Dec. 27 before pushing back its return at least one more day.
2 On Your Side Sabres Insider Paul Hamilton said on Saturday the league wanted to slow down their return to be cautious.
"They didn't want to rush things. They wanted to make sure they were squared away with the testing and everything else, so they wanted to have the extra day to do that. The teams, if everything's OK, are still going to practice on Sunday. ... What they're going to do is, players are going to come in and test. Then they're going to go out to their cars, and they're going to wait for the results to come in, and they can be told if they can come back in the arena or not."