The Vancouver Canucks return from their COVID-19 outbreak has been put on hold for at least one more game as Friday's contest against the Edmonton Oilers has been postponed.

The Canucks had a Zoom meeting with the NHLPA on Wednesday evening to discuss their return after forward J.T. Miller spoke out earlier in the day. 

Vancouver is scheduled to host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.  

Despite most of the team clearing COVID-19 protocols, Miller called what the team is being asked to do going forward unsafe.

“I don’t feel ready if I’m being honest... It's kind of crazy. I know everyone has a job to do but to expect our entire team to be ready to play in one practice and a pre-game skate is a bit hard to comprehend,” Miller said.

“To be brutally honest, we're going to need more time than this to come back and play hockey. Even the guys that didn't get it aren't ready."

Since March 30, the Canucks have had 22 players and four staff members test positive. The team has also said a variant of the virus has been showing up in positive cases.

With the Canucks (16-18-3) currently in sixth place in the North Division, they may have a bit of an uphill climb to reach the playoffs. But Miller says that isn’t top of mind right now anyway.

“I hope people don’t take this the wrong way, I’m a super competitive guy... but this isn’t about hockey for our team. This is about the health and safety of our players, their family and their children. This isn’t about making the playoffs.”

"What we're being asked to do is not going to be too safe, if you're asking me."

Miller did not test positive for COVID-19, but indicated it’s going to be hard for him to get up to speed considering the layoff, let alone for his teammates who did test positive for the virus.

"It's frustrating, we try to talk about our number one priority is our players health and their families safety and it's impossible to achieve that with what we're being asked to do," he said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, seven players remain on the NHL’s COVID Protocols list – Jalen Chatfield, Alex Edler, Jayce Hawryluk, Nils Hoglander, Zack MacEwen, Nate Schmidt and Jake Virtanen.

The league allowed Vancouver to reopen its facilities on Monday and general manager Jim Benning said 10 players skated that day.