NHL team forced to close training facility after positive tests for COVID-19
Some bad news Friday on the COVID-19 front for the NHL. A team has shut down its practice facility during Phase 2 of the league's Return to Play plan after multiple players and staff tested positive for the Corona virus.
"I believe it's three players and two staff who tested positive. Remaining players and staff are being tested. If no further positive tests, expectation is training facility will re-open, Phase Two will continue. If there are further positive tests, well, we will see what happens," reported TSN's Bob McKenzie.
According to him and Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, the team in question is the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"The inherent exposure of the strictly voluntary Phase Two is that the players aren't locked down from the public in any way," continued McKenzie. "And with case counts in [Florida] and [Arizona] skyrocketing of late, it should come as no surprise if NHL players in those hot spots will test positive."
"One thing to note when numbers of positive tests are cited. They sometimes change after the fact. In some instances, an initial positive test comes back negative on a follow up test. So it's possible the five positives could end up as four here."
"We don't yet know the [to be determined] terms/conditions of Phase Three (training camp) and Four (playing games in Hub cities), but they would presumably be much more protective of players/staff. Phase Four will likely be a fully-locked down bubble environment."
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YESTERDAY
MAY 12, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Josh Doan | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Cutter Gauthier | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mason McTavish | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Zach Benson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Beckett Sennecke | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Olen Zellweger | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Norris | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brandon Saad | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||