Emphasis on safety, making a fast restart
For the first time in four months, Joel Quenneville could stand on the ice inside the Florida Panthers IceDen with his team huddled around him.
The coach talked about what they should expect for the first day of practice Monday and the next few weeks of postseason training camp heading into a series against the New York Islanders next month. He — and everyone else — was simply excited to be back working after spending more than a third of the year apart because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pre-practice speeches aren’t limited to just hockey these days, though, especially in South Florida, where case counts have reached unprecedented levels. In less than two weeks, the Panthers plan to depart for Toronto to enter a bubble and play in an expanded postseason. It is more important than ever for the team to take the coronavirus seriously.
“We had to talk to the whole group here today. We had the medical staff talk to them and then it was just the coaches and players,” Quenneville said. “Our priority here is for their safety and their health, so that was a priority for us as a staff and organization is what we’re looking at. That’s first and foremost, that’s our concern, and what we’re looking to take care of and being mindful of that not just when you’re at the rink, but away from the rink, as well.”
By now, most of the NHL is used to policies in place at team facilities across North America. Players are wearing masks when they’re not in the ice.
They’re not sharing tightly packed locker rooms. Hand sanitizer and wet wipes are everywhere, and team employees are doing all they can to keep surfaces clean. In Coral Springs, the Panthers feel safe as ever.
They’ve all been watching case counts climb across Florida, though. They’ve all seen other bubbles, like Major League Soccer’s and the National Women’s Soccer League’s, have hiccups, forcing teams to drop out altogether. On Monday, assistant coach Mike Kitchen even decided to opt out of the postseason return.
The light at the end of the tunnel — a qualifying round series to
The Florida Panthers began postseason training camp ahead of the COVID-19 restart and much of the team’s focus is about staying healthy as the coronavirus continues to spread in South Florida.
get into the Stanley Cup playoffs — is agonizingly close and Florida wants to make sure it doesn’t lose focus right before the finish line.
“We talked as a team today and we’re all big boys, and we’ve got to be smart. It’s not only affecting themselves. It’s affecting 25 other guys, 30 other people and out of respect for your teammates you want to be smart,” center Noel Acciari said. “You’ve got to go to the grocery store, but you’ve got to be careful. It’s maybe not going out to eat or something like that and just think about what you want to do for the next two weeks, and you’ve just got to enjoy your families. You don’t really want to jeopardize it.
“It’s spiking again. You did so well for four months, what’s another two weeks? I think as a team we all respect each other enough to just kind of focus on going home, going to the rink.”
Monday was a reminder of why.
Although Friday technically marked the start of Phase 3 of the NHL’s return-to-play plan, Monday was the first day of training camp for the 24 teams still alive and preparing to head to a pair of bubbles in Canada.
The Panthers had 30 players shuffling in and out of the IceDen, split into two groups for a pair of training sessions supervised by Quenneville for the first time since March. On Tuesday, all 30 will be together for the first time for a full-team workout and scrimmage. The early returns, Quenneville said, were overwhelmingly positive.
Although players have had access to facilities for about a month, it was strictly for small-group workouts — 12 players at most — without Quenneville’s supervision. Quenneville, understandably, expected Day 1 of training camp to be just “OK.”
“I was shocked today how well it went,” Quenneville said. “I was surprised that the guys had that much pace to their games, that much energy. If I had to predict going into it what kind of practice we would’ve had, I was hoping it’d be OK, but it was probably as good as any practice we had all year.”
Even though the fourmonth layoff ultimately lasted longer than even the offseason typically does, Aleksander Barkov said it didn’t feel like it. The center likened the hiatus to the week-long break for the All-Star Game or a bye week. Quenneville is coaching like it’s still March, when Florida entered the hiatus riding a two-game winning streak, and the Panthers hope it will let their streak continue nearly five months later.
“It didn’t feel like it was our first practice,” Barkov said. “It felt like we just came after a little break — like after a little All-Star break or something — together and started practicing, and pace was really high and everybody battled hard, so everybody looked really excited to see each other and just be around each other.”