NHL training camps open with sense of urgency

Peter Laviolette pulled the mask away from his face to bark out instructions while pointing every which way with his stick, then put the mask back on and skated around to show his new players what to do.

It was the first day of training camp for Laviolette and the Washington Capitals and most of the NHL. With the regular season starting next week, there’s no time to waste. Camps are now open for the league’s 31 teams and they will last just 10 days.

There are no exhibition games to tune up before the pucks drop for real.

“There’s so many things that you want to touch on, and the time is limited,” Laviolette said after the first on-ice session Monday. “It’s almost like fear when you get home that maybe you didn’t get everything done or you didn’t get in what you were supposed to get done.”

While the seven teams that didn’t make the playoffs got a few days’ head start, everyone will be in the same grind when the season begins Jan.

13. After completing last season in quarantined bubbles, hockey will open the season with the coronavirus pandemic still raging for a

56-game regular season scheduled to run until May 8.

“You get a fresh start,” said Jeff Skinner of the Buffalo Sabres, who haven’t played a game since March. “When you get to take a lot of time off, it sort of builds that anticipation to when you can get back, and now we’re here and it’s an exciting time.”

It’s also different. Coaches couldn’t meet with players in person until camp, there are health and safety protocols to follow and there is daily

COVID-19 testing. Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said he’d emphasize a major point to players about how to approach training and playing this season: “There is no complaining about anything.”

That includes the length of camp, which is even shorter than eight years ago when a lockout cut the season to 48 games. Few seem worried about no preseason games.

“Most players would argue that camps are a little bit long anyway,” Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “It’ll be nice to get right to it, get up to game speed as fast as we can and then hit the ice for games that matter.”

In a reminder that the pandemic is still making an impact on the sport, three NHL teams have to find new places for top minor leaguers to play. The American Hockey League announced that three teams will opt out of this season, forcing St. Louis to shuffle prospects to Utica and leaving Nashville and Florida to figure out a Plan B.