Montreal Canadiens: Jan Mysak’s Czechia Forfeit’s Game vs Oliver Kapanen and Finland
The Montreal Canadiens have three players in action at the World Juniors this year.
All three players were supposed to play today but a last minute Covid positive test result has forced the forfeiture of one of those games.
Jan Mysak and Czechia were set to face off against Oliver Kapanen and Finland at 2:00 PM EST. However, a positive Covid test on Mysak’s team has forced Czechia to forfeit the game.
There is no word on how this will affect the rest of the tournament. USA had to forfeit a game last night against Switzerland but looks ready to go today as they will play Sweden tonight as long as there are no additional positive tests among the team. Everyone on their team had to be tested again this morning with the results due back a few hours before puck drop tonight. If everyone is negative, the game will go on as planned. If there are more positives, it becomes difficult for USA to finish the tournament.
Czechia is supposed to play Austria tomorrow in the first game of the day which is barely 24 hours after this positive test was announced. That is a tight timeline to try and test everyone on the team again to see if it has spread around the locker room.
Unfortunately for Czechia, this drops their record to 0-2-1 in the tournament and they would need to beat Austria to advance to the quarterfinals. If they are forced to forfeit that game as well, their tournament would be over.
Finland on the other hand now improves to 3-0 and will face Canada on New Year’s Eve in a showdown for first place in their group standings heading into the quarterfinals on January 2nd.
Kaiden Guhle and Canada are still scheduled to play Germany at 7:00 PM EST. Of course, at this point anything could happen in the few hours between now and puck drop.