The Red Wings' next scheduled game is the annual New Year's Eve contest, on Friday, Dec. 31 against the Washington Capitals at Little Caesars Arena.
The Red Wings were scheduled to fly to New York in advance of Wednesday's game late Tuesday afternoon following a practice at Little Caesars Arena. Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman informed Blashill shortly before the team took the practice ice that the game would be postponed.
The NHL announced the postponement of 10 games at about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Wednesday's game is the Red Wings' only current postponement.
Blashill was admittedly disappointed at the news, but acknowledged that it serves as another reminder of the situation that the league, and society in general, is in with the evolution of the pandemic.
"Personally, I wanted to go play. I wanted to go get going," Blashill said. "I think we're all anxious to play again, and I think we all understand that these are tough times, and we just gotta work through them."
Detroit currently has six players in the NHL's COVID protocol, including Adam Erne, Sam Gagner, Nick Leddy, Jordan Oesterle, Lucas Raymond and Joe Veleno. Alex Nedeljkovic and Filip Zadina came out of protocol on Tuesday.
Blashill said he expected more players to exit protocol this week, which will add depth to the team practicing on the ice ahead of the Washington game.
"We'll practice the next two days. Certain players that have been going every day depending on certain things might have a chance to not skate tomorrow," Blashill said. "But we'll definitely skate tomorrow.
"There's some guys that haven't skated at all. Some guys have been skating since Sunday. So we'll practice and we'll have a fuller practice Thursday. Everybody that's gonna be available to us Friday, as we sit here today, will also be available Thursday, and we expect to have a few more guys out of protocol by that point. That gives us a chance to practice as a full team on Thursday."
Blashill also confirmed that as it currently stands, Raymond and Leddy would not be available against the Capitals on Friday, as they would not meet the requirements to come out of the NHL's COVID protocol.
