Regardless of further Blues Covid drama, Game 2 is on tonight (UPDATED)

There is a lot of drama surrounding the St. Louis Blues as I type this. Several Blues players – including goalie Jordan Binnington, Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz – were not on the ice for the Blues at the morning skate at Ball Arena. Did they test positive for Covid-19 or be exposed via contact tracing and are now, therefore, on “The List?”

We’re still awaiting word on that. What Colorado Hockey Now can say definitively, however: the game is going to be played as scheduled, a trusted industry source tells us. Puck drop is slated for about 8:45, so get your naps in.

Blues GM Doug Armstrong indicated there may be some false-positives regarding the latest tests for his players. He put out this statement: “We have discovered discrepancies in Covid test results relating to multiple players. We have been in touch with and are working with the League to address these discrepancies with additional testing and expect to have further information later (today).”

Hearing at least one MLB team has also been impacted by false Covid results in addition to what we’re seeing in the NHL. Apparently the lab in question is out of California. Would anticipate some news providing some level of clarity shortly. #NHL #stlblues

— Andy Strickland (@andystrickland) May 19, 2021

Blues top scorer David Perron, believed to be back in St. Louis, is already on the list and won’t play tonight. Reports out of St. Louis earlier have said vaccines were offered to all Blues players near the end of the regular season, but that eight players declined to take them.

Is that related? I’m not a doctor, so I have no freakin’ clue. All I know is the Blues have some Covid issues with their team right now.

Frankly, I hope Binnington and Tarasenko, et. al, play. I said this earlier about the Perron situation: I don’t like playing teams missing a top guy or two, because can you imagine the lift the Blues will get if they played without their top goalie and couple top forwards and steal Game 2? Now, the Blues have a built-in excuse if they lose, and a rallying cry if they win. I’d rather beat a team with their main guys.

But that’s just me. We’ll see what happens here this afternoon.

UPDATE: Yep, Armstrong was right. False-positives. Like I said, good. I don’t want to play a team that can get a huge boost from a win like they could have gotten tonight. Let’s let the best team win, period.

The @NHL today released the following statement on COVID-19 test results for the @StLouisBlues and @GoldenKnights. https://t.co/YpTBl0x4ZS pic.twitter.com/uC0vgU6JnH

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 19, 2021