The Montreal Canadiens, Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators are now part of a growing list of teams sidelined by COVID-19.
South of the border, the Columbus Blue Jackets find themselves in the same boat.
Monday was yet another exercise in minute-by-minute updates and Twitter refreshing as the NHL continues to limp towards its holiday break — and coronavirus variants cast a long shadow.
Those four clubs were put on ice until at least Sunday due to COVID-19 concerns, joining the Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers and Nashville Predators.
The Calgary Flames, who have endured the largest outbreak across the league with 32 people impacted, said their facility has re-opened to members of the organization that have remained negative throughout daily testing.
It will, however, be a lonely place with 19 players and 13 staff members still in the NHL's COVID-19 protocol.
In all, a total of 11 teams — more than one-third of the league — have either been shut down or voluntarily suspended operations over the last week as the pandemic's latest wave fuelled by the fast-spreading Omicron variant wreaks havoc.
Unlike last season, the league isn't providing a daily count of players in COVID-19 protocol, but the number currently stands at roughly 15 per cent.
The NHL issued a statement Monday with a line that's been repeated over the last week when announcing the Canadiens and Blue Jackets would be shuttered, indicating the decision was made "due to concern with the number of positive cases within the last several days as well as concern for continued COVID spread."
Columbus was supposed to visit Buffalo on Monday, but cancelled its morning skate while awaiting test results, some 24 hours after scrapping practice due to virus concerns. The Blue Jackets were also scheduled to host the Sabres on Thursday.
The Oilers then announced defencemen Darnell Nurse and William Lagesson have been added to protocol, joining five teammates and head coach Dave Tippett. The club subsequently tweeted its facility would also be closed through the Christmas break.
The Senators, who said assistant coach Davis Payne has been added to protocol, tweeted the team won't practise again until after the schedule pause for "precautionary reasons."
The league, which said Saturday it was immediately returning to tighter health and safety measures akin to last season's COVID-19 rules in hopes of curbing virus spread, also announced two games set for Tuesday — Pittsburgh-New Jersey and Seattle-Arizona — have been postponed.
The NHL has been forced to scrub 44 games this season, with 39 coming since Dec. 13. Ottawa and the New York Islanders were previously shut down by the league because of COVID-19 outbreaks earlier in the fall.
All but one NHL player — Detroit winger Tyler Bertuzzi — is vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The Canadiens, who added forward Mike Hoffman to protocol late Monday afternoon, said over the weekend they were closing their facility until Dec. 26 as a preventive measure before the NHL made the move official. The government of Quebec then announced a single-day provincial record of 4,571 new COVID-19 infections.
Along with the six other Canadian-based clubs, Montreal had already seen its remaining games before the holidays postponed following the league's decision Sunday to temporarily pause cross-border travel through Thursday.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association said in a joint statement the plan was to avoid a full league shutdown, instead choosing to continue halting team activities on a case-by-case basis.
The league's holiday break begins Friday and runs through Sunday, with games scheduled to resume next Monday.
The NHL also said it would be announcing a decision with the union on participation at the 2022 Beijing Olympics later this week, but the string of COVID-19 postponements has almost certainly paved the way for the league to pull out of the Winter Games in China.
The Flames, meanwhile, tweeted that players and staff in protocol will be returning to the facility over the next week "as allowed after completing their required isolation period as per (Alberta Health Services) recommendations."
The Leafs announced Monday two members of their support staff have entered protocol. Toronto has seven players, including captain John Tavares and No. 1 goalie Jack Campbell, in isolation along with head coach Sheldon Keefe.
Canadian public health officials have said COVID-19's latest mutation has the potential to spread more quickly than the Delta variant, which was already highly transmissible. It's also not currently known whether Omicron carries a higher or lower risk of severe illness or death.
When it comes to immunity, being fully vaccinated and then getting a booster shot is expected to reasonably protect against infection, and likely offers strong protection against severe illness. However, experts have said that must be combined with layers of public health measures and individual precautions.
Canadiens winger Brendan Gallagher spoke with reporters Sunday — prior to the team being shut down — for the first time since he was sidelined by the coronavirus earlier this month.
The 29-year-old said he experienced some "pretty tough symptoms" the first couple of days.
"It got me hard … just laying there, fighting it," Gallagher told reporters in Brossard, Que. "But after two days I was good, and then it was eight days of me (quarantining) with my thoughts and a little bit of boredom in the house. I did some cleaning, played a lot of video games, watched a lot of movies, made a lot of phone calls, and checked in on the guys quite a bit.
"It took a while for me to get (COVID-19), but now that you went through it, you understand what everyone's been going through."
Gallagher added there's definitely been talk among players about a league-wide pause to the schedule.
"We're having those conversations, for sure," he said. "I understand the NHL's standpoint. We've got to get an 82-game season in — we have to.
"We knew we were going to have to deal with this, and this was a potential and a possibility."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2020.
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Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press