If NHL resumes play, 2 weeks needed for minicamp, Penguins’ Mike Sullivan says

Mike Sullivan knows the answer isn’t an easy one, but the Pittsburgh Penguins coach insisted the NHL has “great leadership” that he’s willing to entrust to make the correct decision.

But in Sullivan’s opinion, the league’s players would need “somewhere in the timeframe of two weeks” to ramp back up and get their bodies into appropriate shape for a resumption of play that has been stopped in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I would think (two weeks is sufficient) to give guys an opportunity to get back involved with skating again, to get back involved with physical play and body contact and things that of that nature that are required to play at the intensity level that is demanded of you in the NHL — especially given the fact that when we do return to play that it’s going to be a very high-stakes scenario,” Sullivan said Tuesday during a video call with Pittsburgh media.

“As we get closer to the date, we’re going to have to make decisions as to what to do then. We’re biting this off in chunks.”https://t.co/cu6uT5Brbz

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) March 31, 2020

The unprecedented nature of the league’s layoff that began March 12 will mean plenty of unknowns for when — or even if — the 2019-20 season restarts. There will be winners and losers, to be sure, based off of the circumstances, and each team will operate under a level playing field as it navigates the situation.

“The timeframe is uncertain,” Sullivan said. “We don’t know how long we are going to be out whenever that return-to-play scenario takes place. But having said that, what I will say is every team is in the same circumstance, and so we are all going to have the same timeframe to try to prepare our teams to compete given the window of time that the league is going to allow for some sort of a mini training camp.”

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