Don’t be surprised if a couple of players are missing from the ice when Bruins training camp gets going at the outset of Phase 3 of Return to Play on Monday morning at Warrior Ice Arena.
The Bruins submitted a roster of 29 players and four goaltenders that will be a part of training camp for the next few weeks before leaving for the Toronto hub city on July 26. The list did not include Bruins reserve D-man Steve Kampfer, who has opted out due to health concerns for his wife and young son amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but it sounds like everybody on the active training camp roster is intent on playing for the next few months.
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Still, at least one or two European players may not be on the ice for the first day of practice while observing the self-quarantine rules following international travel to get to Boston over the last couple of weeks. Several European players like Zdeno Chara, Par Lindholm, Jaroslav Halak and Tuukka Rask were already taking part in Phase 2 practices over the last month, and it's unknown exactly which players might not be cleared to go right out of the opening starting gate.
“They have a final decision to make by Monday at 5 p.m. At this point in time we haven’t heard from anybody else [aside from Steve Kampfer],” said Don Sweeney. “We may have one or two players that are still facing international quarantine rules per the recommendation of our staff, but within a day or so we should be fully up and going.”
David Pastrnak, Ondrej Kase, Joakim Nordstrom, Urho Vaakanainen, Jakub Zboril and Daniel Vladar were the players expected to be traveling back from Europe, so any camp absences at the start would be expected to be among that group.