Dan’s Daily: Drury Turns Down Penguins, Marino on COVID List

As if the Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t have a difficult enough path with six defensemen out with injuries, D-man John Marino landed on the NHL COVID-19 protocols list on Wednesday evening. A prime candidate pulled out of the Penguins GM search, the Minnesota Wild become the latest team to shut down due to COVID, and Roberto Luongo is getting a shot at management.

Marino played over 30 minutes for the Penguins on Monday night. Now, he is in the NHL COVID protocol (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)

Chris Drury rebuffed the Penguins interview for their open GM position (NY Post)

Teddy Blueger and Tristan Jarry are set to break a 44-year-old Penguins curse (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)

Go, Bobby Lou! Roberto Luongo became a senior advisor to former Florida Panthers GM Dale Tallon. Now, he’s one of the GMs of Team Canada for the 2022 Wintery Olympics (Florida Hockey Now)

That’s a REALLY big deal to be one of the GMs for Team Canada. Given his colleagues are all current NHL GMs, he will be in a prime position to claim a big job sooner than later. Word travels fast in hockey, whether he’s good or bad at the job.

The NWHL suspended their season on Wednesday. The league tried to bubble in Lake Placid, NY, but things were not going well, a couple of teams pulled out, and they’ll regroup (Sportsnet)

It’s a tough go for women’s hockey as there isn’t yet a deep talent pool or large-scale TV interest, but everything must start somewhere, and the league is much further along than it was two years ago.

Blake Wheeler is getting criticism in Winnipeg. He pushed back a little. His coach Paul Maurice then pushed back a lot, “He’s got 11 f—— points in 10 games!” (TSN)

I absolutely love Maurice dishing plainspoken truth or at least a plainspoken rebuttal.

National Hockey Now

David Pastrnak is back in the swing of things. He scored 12 seconds off the opening faceoff and completed the hat trick as Boston won again (Boston Hockey Now)

The Colorado Avalanche had one player added to the COVID list, but the Minnesota Wild had a bunch. Minnesota became the latest team to shut it down, and that means this week’s series with Colorado is postponed (Colorado Hockey Now)

Here’s a fun podcast for your list. The San Jose Hockey Now crew looked at “Hockey Speak” and just what the hell it means (San Jose Hockey Now)

The New York Islanders 2016 first-round pick Kieffer Bellows really wants to play for the Islanders, but they don’t make it easy to crack the lineup (NYI Hockey Now)