TSN Hockey Insider Bob McKenzie joins 7-Eleven That’s Hockey host Gino Reda to discuss what Friday’s news means for the Tampa Bay Lightning and the league as a whole. Here is the latest:

Reda: As you reported, Tampa Bay shut down its camp when three players and some staff tested positive for COVID-19. What does this mean for Tampa moving forward and in the much bigger scheme of things, what does this mean to the NHL’s Return to Play plan and protocol?

McKenzie: For the Tampa Bay Lightning, they’ve temporarily closed their training facilities in Phase 2 of the NHL’s Return to Play protocol and they are currently testing all of their players, their staff and going through to see if there’s any other positive tests. If there’s not, then the facility could be reopened fairly quickly, and they could get back to Phase 2. Obviously, if there are more positive tests, well then, all bets are off as far as reopening the facility any time soon.

Now, what does it mean to the NHL and, for that matter, the NHL Players’ Association? Depends who you talk to. I don’t think the NHL is surprised that some players are testing positive. And in fact, I won’t be surprised if we get more players testing positive in other locales. We know that Florida, Texas and Arizona are all big time COVID-19 hotspots and here’s the problem with Phase 2 – the voluntary Phase 2 of the NHL’s plan. The players are not under lockdown. They’re not in the bubble. The ultimate NHL plan is to get to Phase 3, which is training camp on July 10 and ultimately Phase 4 at the beginning of August to play games. In Phase 4, it’s a totally locked down environment and the league believes it can control that. So the question I guess I would ask is, how much between now and the potential for Phase 4 – assuming you get there – is there if you keep getting a lot of positive tests? What impact does that have on the players, who by the end of this month have to decide whether they’re going to sign off on the terms and conditions and the economic conditions including a CBA of Phase 3 and Phase 4. For now, I think the NHL will be proceeding business as usual, but I think everyone is waiting to see how many more positive tests there are and what the psychological impact of this is on the players who have to vote on whether to come back for Phase 3 and Phase 4.

Reda: And Bob, to your point the Tampa Bay Lightning aren’t the only Florida residents getting hit hard right now by COVID-19. Over the last two weeks, the daily average of positive tests in the state of Florida is up by 144 per cent.