Marcus Foligno enters NHL's COVID-19 protocols
The Minnesota Wild announced Monday that forward Marcus Foligno has entered the NHL's COVID-19 protocols, which means he'll be out for at least five days.
Taking Foligno's spot on the roster is forward Mitchell Chafree, who has been called up to the big club from the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League.
Losing Foligno this late in the season for any amount of time is a big deal. Minnesota (101 points) is one point behind St. Louis for second place in the Central Division. The Wild and Blues are all but locked in to face each other in the first round of the playoffs, with whoever finishes with more points getting home-ice advantage.
Minnesota has eight games left in the regular season, including three in the next five days, which Foligno will miss: Tuesday at Montreal, Thursday versus Vancouver and Friday at home against Seattle.
The NHL modified its COVID protocols in late December. They force vaccinated players who test positive for COVID-19 to:
- Isolate for five days;
- If the individual has a fever, continue to isolate until their fever resolves;
- If the individual has no symptoms or their symptoms are resolving after five days, they can leave isolation and return to practices and games, provided the following conditions are met:
- A lab-based PCR test that is negative, or a lab-based PCR test that has a CT value >30, or two negative molecular point of care tests collected >2 hours apart; and,
- Medical clearance from the individual's Club physician; and,
- Such exit is permitted by their local health authority.
- The individual shall continue to always wear a mask around others for five additional days, other than for practices and games.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.