A Pittsburgh Penguins player has recovered after testing positive for COVID-19, the team announced Thursday.
According to the Penguins, the player is “feeling well,” and those in close contact with him leading up to the diagnosis have been notified.
“The player is not in Pittsburgh and has been in isolation at his home since first experiencing symptoms,” the team said in a statement.
The NHL is still waiting to begin Phase 2 of its restart plan, which will allow for small voluntary group workouts at team training facilities. The league is still on track to begin training camps in July that will be roughly three weeks long.
The NHL has already said it plans to test players daily for the coronavirus once games get going. Commissioner Gary Bettman has projected that the NHL will require 25,000 to 35,000 tests. Since each test will cost about $125, the price tag for testing will be in the millions. The NHL has said it wants to get to a point where one or two positive tests won’t shut down the entire operation.
“We will have a rigorous daily testing protocol where players are tested every evening and those results are obtained before they would leave their hotel rooms the next morning, so we’ll know if we have a positive test and whether the player has to self-quarantine himself as a result of that positive test,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said last week. “It’s expensive, but we think it’s really a foundational element of what we’re trying to accomplish.”