Phantoms: Heightened COVID Awareness Following Opponents' Outbreaks

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Lehigh Valley Phantoms have played just one game in the past 13 days leading into scheduled home games this weekend against the Cleveland Monsters and Hartford Wolf Pack.

Multiple reports of widespread cases among several of the Phantoms' Atlantic Division counterparts caused a total of four of Lehigh Valley's games - November 28th (at Hershey), December 1 (vs Hershey), December 4 (vs Hershey) and December 10 (at Hartford) - to be postponed due to the American Hockey League's (AHL) COVID protocols affecting the Bears and Wolf Pack in the past two weeks.

The Phantoms have had a player of their own in COVID protocol in an isolated incident. Defenseman Cam York, who last played November 20 in Toronto, is expected to resume skating this week - according to Philadelphia Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher.

"Obviously, it's out there. It's going to be with us for a while, I think, unfortunately," Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere told Inside AHL Hockey. "But it's in our league right now. It's everywhere. We just played a couple teams and then they have a couple of cases. And that's our new reality we have to deal with," he said.

Laperriere said he addressed it with the team leading up to last weekend's lone game against Charlotte and that the team's training staff again went over things to be doing to reducing the risk of exposure and spread of the virus on game day.

"Yeah, we're doing all the precautions.. wearing our masks, staying out of crowded areas, staying hydrated, washing our hands. Our training staff is great. They keep us informed of what we have to do," Phantoms forward and assistant captain Garrett Wilson said.

After the players on last year's Phantoms squad went through an extended hiatus because of multiple positive COVID cases in their own locker room, there is certainly a heightened awareness around the team, as well as the league, as eight different teams - Bakersfield, Hartford, Henderson, Hershey, Providence, Rochester, Springfield and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton - have had games postponed because of the league's COVID protocol in recent weeks.

"I've heard a lot of teams are getting hit pretty hard now, so we got to be careful and hopefully we can stay out of it so we keep practicing and getting better, Wilson told Inside AHL Hockey last week. "And hopefully start winning some hockey games."

The Phantoms had a bit of an increase in precautions as a team at their last home game, at least noticeable to those with press access.

It's no surprise that is was something that was talked about given the increase in COVID cases around the league and in the NHL where over 100 players have entered the NHL's COVID protocol already this season. The AHL does not disclose players on its COVID protocol, though individual teams have publicly stated that a specific player of theirs is out due to COVID-protocol or is a COVID-related absence from the lineup.

While the time off from game action could perhaps benefit the Phantoms - getting some injured players back in the lineup and allowing a frustrated hockey team a chance to take a step or two back and readjust and reset after a disappointing opening first quarter of the season - they've dug themselves a hole in the Atlantic Division with their 3-11-5 start. With more games in clusters and less practice time to work on details, it's sink or swim time coming up as the team enters seven games in 12 days before a week of no games during the holiday weekend.

"It's gonna catch up to us at one point, we're gonna have to play those games," Laperriere said, referencing squeezing those four postponed games into an already full remaining schedule. "But again, we got to worry about our next game and not worry about down the road right now. It's, we got another week of practice this week because of COVID. And we'll try to make corrections on the mistakes [we've] made."