Playoffs put on hold for two days

Vegas forward Ryan Reaves was struggling with the decision of whether to sit out the Golden Knights’ playoff game to protest racial injustice, when he discovered the players around the NHL had his back.

Reaves awoke Thursday to find a text from Tampa Bay defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, prompting a conversation that helped lead the NHL to postpone four playoff games over two days.

“That, I think, was more powerful that the conversation started with white players on other teams wanting to talk,” said Reaves, who is a Black man. “And I think that’s the most powerful thing that happened today. You see us all coming together here.”

The decision to postpone two sets of secondround games Thursday and Friday came in the face of withering criticism from Black players accusing the league of being slow to acknowledge the police shooting Sunday of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.

Among those urging the NHL to take a break was Sharks forward Evander Kane, who — on behalf of the Hockey Diversity Alliance — used Twitter to push for the playoffs to pause. The league listened. “After much discussion, NHL players believe that the best course of action would be to take a step back and not play tonight’s and tomorrow’s games as scheduled,” a joint statement released by the league and the NHL Players’ Association said. “Black and brown communities continue to face real, painful experiences.”

The announcement came an hour before the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Islanders were to play Game 3 of their Eastern Conference series in Toronto, with Vegas and Vancouver to face off in Edmonton

Alberta, later Thursday. Boston versus Tampa Bay and Dallas against Colorado had been scheduled for Friday.

The playoffs are to resume Saturday.

Reaves was impressed by the support, especially coming from a league made up predominantly of white players.

“Most of these guys have never lived through some of the stuff that Black athletes have,” he said.

“But for them to say, ‘Look, we see what’s going on in society and we disagree with it and something has to change now,’ that was my message,” Reaves said. “Standing together here is more powerful than anything you can do.”