The NHL is temporarily cutting the pay of league office employees by 25%.
The league confirmed that salaries will be reduced across the board starting April 1.
The NHL's season has been on pause since March 12 because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. According to sources, the NHL is hoping that the temporary pay cut among league office employees will prevent layoffs during this uncertain time.
There were 3½ weeks and 189 games remaining in the regular season when play was suspended. The NHL has been modeling several different options on how to complete the season, if at all possible. Teams have been told to look into building availability through the summer.
For now, NHL players have been told to self-isolate at their homes until at least March 27.
On Monday, the New Jersey Devils became the first known NHL team to be subject to a pay cut while the season is on pause. The sports and entertainment group that owns the Philadelphia 76ers and the Devils notified salaried, full-time employees that they would be subject to temporary pay cuts of up to 20% and would be moving to a four-day workweek. But on Tuesday, ownership for the teams came out and said that "after listening to our staff and players, it's clear that was the wrong decision. We have reversed it and will be paying these employees their full salary."
The NHL has reiterated that it doesn't want to do anything to compromise the 2020-21 season. Commissioner Gary Bettman told ESPN's Get Up last week that he believed that under the current circumstances, the league can "go later than we've ever gone."
"How late is a good question," Bettman said. "What we want to make sure of is that we don't do anything from this season that might impact next season and having the normalcy it is supposed to have. So the two factors are timing relative to how late we can go without impacting next season, and making sure that whatever we do competitively, if we are going to complete this current season, it has to have integrity, and it has to be respectful of the well-over-100-year history of the Stanley Cup. And that's something we're very focused on."