St. Louis Blues Might Get Back On The Ice In October

The NHL unveiled a rather detailed memo to teams during the Stanley Cup Final. It discusses how the St. Louis Blues, and all 30 other teams, can return to the ice for practice.

The St. Louis Blues might have had an early exit to the 2020 NHL Playoffs, but they might have an early start to the next phase of hockey too. The NHL has unveiled how and when teams can get back to the rink to prepare for 2020-21.

The Blues have plenty of question marks for what remains of the offseason. At least they know that offseason will potentially not be as long as it could have been.

The NHL will reopen team facilities for voluntary workouts on October 15. However, that does not automatically mean anyone will be at the rink on that day.

The league went into detail about how the facility will be used.

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The buildings can open October 15, but teams will need a notice from at least five players prior to using the building for practice. That means if almost all the team is back home in Canada or on vacation, the couple guys that stayed in St. Louis are out of luck.

The downfall of this is the NHL is really clamping down. While players can practice at team facilities, they are not allowed to do any on-ice work anywhere else.

So, if a player lived, say, in Chesterfield, they cannot go to the Maryville University Hockey Center and buy an hour’s worth of ice time. It’s Centene Center or bust.

Everyone has to mask up too. Despite the fact that you must produce a negative test to be allowed into the building, the players will have to wear a mask at all times unless on the ice or using the weight room.

On the positive side, there will be more players allowed in at once. Prior to the restarted playoffs, there were only six allowed to practice at once. This time around, there will be a maximum of 12 players allowed in at once. Though, if they are using the weight room, only six are allowed in together.

There cannot be any crossover either. However many players use the facility have to come on their own, leave, allow a cleaning crew to disinfect the building and then another set of players may enter.

This might become difficult for teams like the Blues. Centene Center is a public facility, so the only way that might work is if the building has a special entrance just for the Blues’ rink and they can lock off the ice.

However, at least this might give an opportunity to some of the young players or draft picks. It might be asking a bit much to put the new draftees up in a hotel, but if you’re wanting them to get playing time during a time when colleges might not play and junior leagues are in the air, this might be your best bet.

While many of the rules have been discussed here, there are others talked about in the ESPN article that I won’t go into. Some of this stuff is more divisive than the Blues goalie situation has ever been, so you can read it all for yourselves.

Still, I do understand the precautions the NHL is trying to take. They want/need to have a season and are doing their best to take the precautions to make that happen.

Next. 2021 a very important year for Blues goaltenders. dark

From a team perspective, I hope the players utilize this extra time. The Blues left the decision on when to start practice up to the players prior to the playoffs and you could tell they weren’t up to speed.

Nobody knows when the 2020-21 season might start, but the more prepared the team is, the better chances they’ll have to regain the Stanley Cup.

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