The NHL has announced that they will not have players participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics. The NHL and NHLPA agreed to do so after the NHL postponed all games until December 27th because of the recent rise of COVID-19 cases. Eight Bruins players were rostered on teams. 

Here the eight Bruins players that were going to compete:

Bruins head coach/assistant coach Bruce Cassidy, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand (Canada); Charlie McAvoy (U.S.A); David Pastrnak, Tomas Nosek, Jakub Zboril (Czech Republic); Erik Haula (Finland).

The NHL released a Statement early Wednesday.

 “Since the CBA extension was reached 17 months ago, NHL players have looked forward with great anticipation to once again participating in the Winter Olympics. Until very recently, we seemed to be on a clear path to go to Beijing. COVID-19 has unfortunately intervened, forcing dozens of games to be postponed this month alone. No matter how much we wish it were not the case, we need to utilize the Olympic period to reschedule these games.

“Certainly, the players and hockey fans are quite disappointed. But playing a full 82-game season this year, something the pandemic has prevented us from doing since the 2018-19 season, is very important. We expect that NHL players will return to the Olympics in 2026.”

Originally, the Olympic break was from February 6th through 22nd and now the NHL will use those dates to fill in postponed games missed during the NHL shutdown.

The Bruins have had a total of four games postponed so far. What was going to be the Olympic break will now be used to play all of the postponed games.