The Maple Leafs have not played since Dec. 14 and have had six straight contests cancelled.Perry Nelson/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
Sheldon Keefe tested positive for COVID-19 in the hours before the Maple Leafs were scheduled to play the Canucks on Dec. 18.
At the time, he felt fine.
“I almost didn’t believe it,” Toronto’s head coach said Tuesday after he returned to oversee practice for the first time since then. “I didn’t want to believe it.”
The game in Vancouver that night was postponed at the last minute as the novel coronavirus began to spread rapidly within the team. To this point, 14 players, three coaches and four other staff members have been infected.
Within a day of his diagnosis, Keefe began to feel ill.
“The last 10 days have been pretty quiet and five were pretty tough,” the 41-year-old said. “You get to the point where you don’t want to do much.”
Keefe said he suffered from flu-like symptoms for four days after which it felt like he had a cold.
“Certainly, it wasn’t comfortable,” he said.
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After a few days in quarantine, Keefe was able to return to Toronto and spend Christmas with his family. One of his two sons had tested positive while Keefe was away. Fortunately, he was asymptomatic, but it made for an odd holiday break.
“We were able to be together separately,” Keefe said. “It felt strange for all of us to wear masks inside.”
Within a day of his COVID-19 diagnosis, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe began to feel ill.Brace Hemmelgarn/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
The Maple Leafs have not played since Dec. 14 and have had six straight contests cancelled. Their next scheduled game is at home against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.
Twenty-two players participated in a workout on Tuesday at the Ford Performance Centre in the city’s west end. That is up from 18 on Monday, when the team convened for practice for the first time since Dec. 16.
A session scheduled for Dec. 17 in Vancouver was cancelled as a precautionary measure after John Tavares and Alexander Kerfoot tested positive. Within 24 hours, seven players, Keefe and assistant coach Spencer Carbery had all been placed on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list as the virus gained a foothold.
Cases have continued to pop up, with defencemen Jake Muzzin’s the most recent to be identified on Sunday.
Like Keefe, goaltender Jack Campbell and defencemen T.J. Brodie and Travis Dermott were back at work on Tuesday.
Dermott said he began to have symptoms on the night of Dec. 17 in his hotel room in Vancouver.
“I had a headache and cold sweats and was pretty sure I would test positive the next morning,” Dermott said. He did and continued to test positive until Dec. 23.
His 25th birthday was Dec. 22 and he had planned to hold a big party for his family.
“That got stopped pretty quickly,” Dermott said.
Dermott said he felt better after a day or two, but daily tests showed that he was still positive.
“From then on it was just a battle waiting for a negative test,” Dermott said. “I am happy to be back. It felt like I was away from the rink and the guys for an eternity.”
Kerfoot, one of the first Maple Leaf players to fall ill with COVID-19, practised on Tuesday for the second straight day.
He said he only had minor symptoms – congestion and night sweats – and that he remained in Vancouver, his hometown, and went into quarantine there while his teammates returned to Toronto.
“At the beginning for us to be on the road wasn’t ideal,” said Kerfoot, 27. “This mutation [of the virus] is super contagious. Even if you follow all the rules, you can still get it. It is unfortunate, but that is the world we live in right now.”
Keefe said the team will have a day off on Wednesday and then prepare on Thursday and Friday for its game against Ottawa on Saturday.
He said players have commented that they felt worse after their first post-COVID-19 practices than they had after their initial practice in pre-season. Campbell was kept to only light duty in an abbreviated workout.
“We are trying to find out what’s best for the players and what they need,” Keefe said. “It is a challenge for sure. It seems like forever since we played against Edmonton and got a road win [on Dec. 14].”
Keefe said everyone on the team has been affected by COVID-19, infected or not.
“I feel the vibe is good and the group is happy to be together again,” he said. “But everyone is on edge and on guard with what is going on around us here.
“There is a lot of anxiety, even for the guys who haven’t gotten sick. They are waiting and wondering, ‘When’s my turn?’ It is that type of thing.”