Flyers-Devils Games for This Week Postponed
Late last week, the Flyers had four games rescheduled as the NHL made adjustments with both the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks. Now more changes are abound.
Both games between the Flyers and Devils scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 11, and Saturday, Feb. 13, this week have now been postponed. Both games were set to be at Wells Fargo Center.
Those games will presumably be rescheduled for a later date. The Flyers will now have an extended break between Tuesday’s game against Washington and the rescheduled game against the New York Rangers that was moved up to Sunday evening. Both games are on the road. The NHL has compensated for these gaps by sometimes moving other games on the schedule to keep teams not impacted by COVID-19 in action, but for now, that wouldn’t appear to be the case with the Flyers schedule. This will give them some time to get additional practices in and to spend more time at home.
Both the Flyers and Devils are dealing with a COVID-19 situation. The Devils have 16 players on the NHL's COVID-19 Unavailable list at the moment, and their games against Buffalo last weekend sparked an outbreak there that involves nine players and head coach Ralph Krueger.
The Flyers had Travis Sanheim enter the NHL's COVID-19 Unavailable list on Sunday and went to the rink for Sunday's game against Washington not sure if they would even play. All players, coaches and staff for the Flyers took rapid COVID tests to confirm they were negative before playing the game, but it is still very much a wait-and-see situation for them. As of now, their game on Tuesday night in Washington is still on as scheduled, so the Flyers will play their next game before getting an extended break until next Sunday when they face the Rangers.
As with anything on the schedule, everything is subject to change, so stay tuned for additional updates.
Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN and Flyers editor for SportsTalkPhilly.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.