Bubble concerns? Florida Panthers say they’re just excited to get a shot at Stanley Cup.
Sometime in the next week, the Florida Panthers will have a lot of packing to do. Bubble life is on the horizon and the Panthers are less than two weeks away from the strangest — and longest — road trip they’ve ever been a part of in the NHL.
Coach Joel Quenneville knows he needs to pack extra suits so he can be fully stocked for potentially two months away from home. Mike Hoffman plans to bring his Xbox One so he and his Florida teammates have something to do with their downtime when they’re confined inside their hotel bubbles. Brian Boyle will find room for a putter and three golf balls so his golf game doesn’t entirely deteriorate while he doesn’t have regular access to a course.
“I think the biggest suitcase I’ve ever brought on a road trip is the one thing I’d bring,” Boyle said with a laugh.
On July 26, the Panthers will depart from South Florida and arrive in Toronto to enter one of the so-called “bubbles” in one of the NHL’s two hub cities — a plan the league hopes will keep players safe from COVID-19 and keep the coronavirus from disrupting the playoffs.
The exact length of Florida’s stay will depend on how long the Panthers keep winning. They could return to Florida as quickly as two weeks after they arrive if their early-August qualifying-round series against the New York Islanders doesn’t go well. They could be in Canada for more than two months if they got hot and keep springing upsets throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup Finals in October.
Even though it could mean nearly two months away from their families and more than two months without seeing home, the Panthers are apparently uniformly excited to get up to Ontario. No player has opted of the NHL’s return-to-play plan and assistant coach Mike Kitchen is the only member of the organization so far to announce he will not be accompanying the team.
Center Noel Acciari is leaving a newborn son behind to get a shot at the Stanley Cup. Boyle feels comfortable with bubble life even after battling chronic myeloid leukemia a few years ago. Hoffman wishes the team was already there playing in the postseason for just the fourth time in franchise history.
It’s the postseason — albeit an expanded one — and postseason opportunities have been too rare for the Panthers for anyone to turn it down.
“I wish we were heading up there today, getting right into the games,” said Hoffman, who played in the postseason twice as a member of the Ottawa Senators. “It seems like the practices—you want to try to get into the game as much as you can, as quickly as you can, but obviously heading up there will be a different experience. ... It’s going to be, I think, a good experience, something we’ll remember the rest of their lives.”
What will travel be like?
The NHL is currently in Phase 3 of its return plans, which means teams are back participating in an abbreviated postseason training camp. The Panthers have been in Coral Springs since Monday, practicing as a full team at the Florida Panthers IceDen for the first time since COVID abruptly halted the season in March. Teams will travel to one of two hub cities next weekend — Toronto for the 12 Eastern Conference playoff teams and Edmonton for the 12 from the Western Conference — to prepare for Phase 4: the actual start of the expanded 24-team postseason.
As opposed to the NBA’s bubble plan in Central Florida, the NHL’s doesn’t call for any mandatory in-room quarantine at the start. In the next week, every member of the Panthers’ travel party will be tested three times, 48 hours apart.
On July 26, the team will take a charter flight up to Canada and begin being tested daily. For the first five days, players and staff will only be able to interact with people from their own traveling party, except for on the ice during an exhibition game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on July 29.
The Panthers’ traveling party includes 30 players, nine coaches and up to 52 total people. Each team will have at least one physician, security representative, compliance officer and content creator in the party.
“Obviously, we’re going to bring a lot more stuff than when we go on a long road trip,” All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau said Wednesday. “You’re just going to set up like you’re at home. Obviously, you’re going to have your own room and you’re going to hang your stuff in a closet, and stuff like that. We’re excited. I think it’s a chance to be in the playoffs. We haven’t been in a while, so I think we’re mostly focused on the hockey stuff and what we’re going to do with that.”
What will the bubble be like?
The NHL’s 28-page document detailing Phase 4 never mentions the word “bubble,” but the term has become popular nomenclature to describe the NBA’s and NHL’s setups to conclude their interrupted seasons. The NBA’s “bubble” is in Walt Disney World, meaning it’s difficult to keep it entirely airtight. It’ll be different in the NHL, which will spread its 12 East teams out into two Toronto hotels.
The Panthers will stay in the Fairmont Royal York along with the Islanders, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens.
Each team will have a floor to itself and each room will be occupied by just a single player or staff member. Players will not be allowed to enter each others rooms, but they will have common areas, as well as access to the hotels’ fitness areas, pools, bars and restaurants, with social-distancing measures enforced and masks required anytime they’re outside their rooms.
There will also be contact-less room service and food delivery available from local restaurants. Teams will also be allowed to have league-sanctioned “social excursions” to places like golf courses. Any team which violates protocol will be subject to “significant penalties,” including fines and a potential loss of NHL Entry Draft picks.
Daily testing for the NHL goes beyond just players, coaches and team staff. Everyone in the bubbles will be tested every day, including bus drivers, hotel housekeepers and bartenders, and arena food-services staff. In Canada, the virus is under better control than it is in the United States, meaning tests are less scarce and the threat of infection is far less.
What happens if someone does test positive? If asymptomatic, the player could rejoin after two consecutive negative tests in a 48-hour period or after 10 days in isolation. If symptomatic, the player will be able to rejoin after symptoms have subsided for 72 hours, provided the player was in isolation for at least 10 days.
The NHL can “postpone, delay, move or cancel” any game at any time, if circumstances pose “risk to Player health and safety and/or jeopardize the integrity of the competition.”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Quenneville said Wednesday. “There’s all kind of different scenarios that we’ve looked at and we’ll be dealing with it in the right fashion and that’s where we’ll go from there.”
Are families allowed?
The Panthers will be in Canada for at least the first week of August — a best-of-5 series against the Islanders begins on the first day of the month — and a series victory would send them to the more-traditional 16-team playoffs with best-of-7 series. If they win two more series, the Panthers will travel to Edmonton for the NHL Conference Finals. The bubble will be smaller then, with only four teams remaining, so families will be able to join, staying in the same rooms as players after they go through a brief quarantine and daily testing.
Players can also leave and return to the bubble for personal reasons. Upon return, the player will have to quarantine and have four negative tests in a four-day period.
Until they head to Edmonton or return home, the Panthers feel they’ll be too busy with hockey to be too bothered by the bubble’s restrictions. Quenneville said most of his downtime will simply be spent watching hockey with as many as six games happening per day.
“That’s usually what we do come playoff time,” the coach said. “You’re watching all the other series and keeping in tune to what’s going on, how teams are playing and then reinforcing that sometimes when you get together with your group.”
Ultimately, the golf clubs and video game consoles packed in those bulky suitcases aren’t what’s most important. October is a long way away.
By the time the Panthers come back home, it could be fall. Boyle will be packed for all seasons.
“If you go to Edmonton in the fall—I have buddies playing there,” the forward said. “When training camp normally starts, it’s snowing.”
