The St. Louis Blues reported coronavirus testing problems to the NHL only hours before Game 2 of their first-round playoff series in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche.
General manager Doug Armstrong says the team was working with the league to address discrepancies in COVID-19 test results relating to multiple players.
Wingers Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz and goaltender Jordan Binnington were not on the ice with the rest of the team for the pregame skate early Wednesday.
St. Louis is the only one of the 16 playoff teams with any players on the NHL's COVID-19 protocol list. Leading scorer David Perron has been on the list and unavailable since Saturday, defenseman Jake Walman since Friday and forward Nathan Walker since Thursday. Perron did not travel with the team for the first two games of the series against the Avalanche.
The NHL later released a statement saying, "We became aware of certain test results involving multiple Players on two Clubs (the St. Louis Blues and the Vegas Golden Knights) that had indicated positive results for the COVID-19 virus. Because those reported results emanated from the same laboratory, and due to other peculiarities and similarities as among the test results themselves, an investigation was initiated into the possibility that the initial test results reported may have been in error. All affected Players were immediately isolated and further testing was done involving collected samples. Those tests have returned uniformly negative results, therefore confirming that the initial reported test results were in error. As a result, all affected Players will be eligible to play in their team's next game."
