Rumor: Shutdown coming for the Winnipeg Jets.

The National Hockey League is in the middle of a crisis thanks entirely to a rampant outbreak of Covid across the league, a crisis that has resulted in a number of teams being forced to shut down their operations over the holidays. On Saturday we learned that a staggering 16 players had been added to the NHL's Covid protocol list, bringing the 72 hour total to 66 players added to the list, and now there is good reason to believe that yet another NHL team is set to be shut down.

The first on the news today is Jason Bell of the Winnipeg Free Press, and Bell is reporting that sources have informed him that a shutdown is forthcoming for the Jets. Specifically Bell reports that the Jets will play out their meeting with the St. Louis Blues which is scheduled for today, however he is also reporting that the game the Jets had scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday against the Dallas Stars has been postponed.

Bell believes that the shutdown will come after the game against the Blues, a game that he expects will be the last game that the Jets will be playing for a little while.

Obviously this is not ideal for any hockey fan that was looking forward to tuning into the games that have been delayed, and even less so for fans who had made plans around the holidays to attend some of these games live and in person. Given the staggering number of cases around the league, with over a hundred players and what NHL insider Frank Seravalli describes as nearly 15% of the league, the news should however come as no surprise.

This may actually prove to be a blessing in disguise for the Jets though, given some of the news that was officially announced earlier today. The Jets placed captain Blake Wheeler on long term injured reserve retroactive to December 10th, and while that is bad news it is also part of today's silver lining. While Wheeler would have been unable to participate in the upcoming games on the schedule, he could very well be back in time for when the games will actually take place now that they must be rescheduled later in the NHL calendar.