#NJDevils Nick Merkley will head back to Canada soon and spend some time there with family, although most of Canada is in a lock-down at the moment.
— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) May 11, 2021
Merkley was in Finland before the NHL season started and wants to get back to Canada to see his family.
As a final takeaway, it’s clear that the players still have some very strange things to deal with this season. Jesper Bratt says he doesn’t know if he can play for Team Sweden in the World Championships because of issues with travel. As you may remember, Bratt had some issues with his visa after signing in the middle of training camp. Now, he still doesn’t know where he is going next.
Nick Merkley says he’s going straight to Canada, but he will likely have to quarantine in his home for two weeks. That is the same as all Canadian players who want to go home this offseason. Most Canadian players haven’t been able to see their families all season because of issues getting over the border. Now, they may have to wait even longer to see family.
Players going to other countries might have similar issues. Every country is dealing with the pandemic differently, and most countries don’t have the luxury of building the vaccines within their borders.
This just goes to show that the weirdness that is the NHL season will continue with a weird offseason. For one, it’s on a different timeline (it started late and will continue through the end of September). Another reason is just dealing with the pandemic in these different countries after getting used to how New Jersey is dealing with it. Hopefully, this is the last time we ever have to talk about how a pandemic is changing an NHL season.