Projected No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafreniere isn't letting his journey to the NHL be ruined by the league's decision to postpone the 2020 draft.

The NHL announced Wednesday the draft won't take place as scheduled due to coronavirus concerns. However, the uncertainty isn't bothering Lafreniere.

"You know, for sure, it would be a little bit different," Lafreniere told TSN's Frank Seravalli. "I think it's still an honor to get drafted by an NHL team. It's really special.

"Maybe it's going to be different, we don't know yet. But day by day, we'll see what happens."

The 18-year-old winger put up 112 points in 52 games this season with the QMJHL's Rimouski Oceanic and earned a gold medal and tournament MVP honors at the world juniors.

Lafreniere admitted it was difficult to hear the QMJHL canceled its season, ultimately cutting short his junior career before the playoffs.

"For sure, it was tough news for me. We all understand and it's serious," he said. "It's a little bit sad that the season came to an end quickly like this. We had a great team this year and we believed we could do something special.

"It went by really quick. It's sad that I won't get to play with these guys again, but it's hockey and you've got to move on at some point."

Lafreniere spent three seasons with Rimouski, tallying 297 points in 173 games.

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Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford is confident Jake Guentzel can play again this season if it resumes.

The talented forward was given a four-to-six month timetable following shoulder surgery after he was injured Dec. 30.

"If you take the shortest period, that would be the end of April," Rutherford told reporters Wednesday, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Mike DeFabo. "I would expect, knowing Jake Guentzel, that he's going to be ready."

There haven't been any setbacks in the 25-year-old's rehab, Rutherford added.

Guentzel was leading the Penguins in scoring when he was injured, collecting 20 goals and 43 points in 39 games. The Nebraska native is coming off a 40-goal season in 2018-19.

He inked a five-year, $30-million contract extension with Pittsburgh in December 2018.

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Dallas Stars president Jim Lites and general manager Jim Nill have agreed to trim their salaries in half during the pause in the NHL season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Nill told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski on Wednesday.

"As soon as this virus hit and we started to see where things were going, we knew it was going to hit (Stars owner Tom Gaglardi) hard, as he's in the hotel and restaurant business," Nill said. "And that it was going to hit all of us. We just thought this was the right thing for our organization to do."

The pay cuts are voluntary and not connected to any club staffing reductions, according to Wyshynski.

On Tuesday, ESPN's Emily Kaplan reported the NHL is temporarily decreasing league office employee salaries by 25%.

Several clubs are also taking cost-cutting measures. The Montreal Canadiens are temporarily laying off 60% of their employees as of March 30. The New Jersey Devils, meanwhile, had planned to trim full-time staff salaries by 20% before co-owner Josh Harris reversed course and apologized.

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Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon denied a report that his team will stop paying full-time employees amid uncertainty caused by the coronavirus.

General manager Don Waddell sent out a directive to full-time employees explaining that the club is evaluating many scenarios for its employees during the NHL's postponement.

"We have been exploring multiple options on how best to take care of our employees while being mindful of the business challenges we face," Waddell said in the notice obtained by Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer.

The Hurricanes announced March 17 they'd cover lost wages for the arena and part-time events staff for the seven remaining home games on the schedule, which was officially paused by the league March 12.

Multiple teams across the big four North American sports leagues have cut employee payments due to the unprecedented stoppage. The Boston Bruins' parent company, Delaware North, announced Wednesday that 68 full-time salaried employees will be put on temporary leave, and 86 full-time employees were given an indefinite salary reduction.

The owners of the New Jersey Devils and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers recently announced they were planning to cut full-time workers' salaries but rescinded their respective decisions and publicly apologized shortly thereafter.

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With the 2019-20 NHL season on pause - and potentially finished - there are a number of questions that will need to be answered in the coming months.

One of the biggest unknowns is how the league will handle the draft lottery should the season be canceled. According to The Athletic's Craig Custance, at least one team has proposed an unorthodox solution - a tournament in which lottery teams would play for the first overall pick.

The idea is a no-brainer for fans and television networks. A tournament for the rights to a talent like Alexis Lafreniere would draw a ton of eyeballs and get fans re-engaged after the long hiatus. But for the teams involved, there are some serious questions that would first need to be answered.

1. How would teams be seeded?

If the regular season doesn't resume and the standings remain as they are, how would teams be seeded in this suggested tournament? Clubs have played a differing number of games, so seeding would likely need to be determined based on points percentage.

That's simple enough, but how would the tournament proceed? It wouldn't make any sense to have the worst teams in the tournament (presumably the higher seeds) competing against the better teams (the lower seeds) right off the bat. Would a bye be in order for the last-placed Detroit Red Wings? What would make it fair?

2. How would the worst teams be given better odds of winning?

We can almost guarantee that Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman would be appalled by this proposal. His team has the best odds of winning the draft lottery under its current format specifically because Detroit doesn't win a ton of hockey games. Now the team would have to win an entire tournament? It's a little backward.

On the flip side, imagine a team like the New York Rangers - who looked more like Stanley Cup contenders than lottery players when the season was suspended - running wild in this tournament. How would the league make their path to the final reflect their odds (2%) of winning the lottery under the traditional format? Would they need to win by a certain number of goals? Begin each game with a deficit? It seems difficult to translate those minuscule odds into an on-ice scenario.

3. What happens if a lottery team doesn't own its pick?

This is one of the proposal's major hurdles. Take the San Jose Sharks. They dealt their 2020 first-round selection to the Ottawa Senators as part of the Erik Karlsson deal. Each team sits 29th and 30th, respectively, in the overall standings. The Sharks wouldn't be afforded a lottery ball in the traditional format, so it wouldn't make sense to have them in the tournament. That's easy, but what about Ottawa?

Under the current lottery structure, the Senators would have an incredible opportunity to claim the top selection. Their pick alone gives them a 13.5% chance, and the San Jose pick yields odds of 11.5%. Assuming the tournament is single-elimination, would Ottawa be afforded more than one loss? What happens to the team's second lottery pick? How are the Senators' odds best reflected on the ice?

4. When and where would the games be played?

As Custance notes, holding this tournament during the summer, with fewer competing sports in play, could end up making this idea very successful and give the league something to build on. However, the league's priority is completing the playoffs, and the summer is the most likely time for that to happen. The NHL could hold both events simultaneously, but that would take some serious logistical savvy.

Another important question: Where will the games take place? It would only be fair to grant the worst teams (the Red Wings, Senators, Sharks, Los Angeles Kings, etc.) home-ice advantage, but where do you make that cutoff? How many home games does each of those teams get? Are their buildings even available? It would take a ton of brainstorming on the league's behalf to get this right.

5. How would picks 5-15 be determined?

Under this proposal, we'd assume the loser of the championship game would get the second pick, while the losers of each semifinal contest would square off for the third and fourth picks, like a bronze-medal game at the Olympics.

What happens to selections five through 15, though? If the league were to default the remaining standings based on points percentage to decide the order, what's the purpose in playing the early games in the tournament if the results only matter for teams that at least advance to the semifinals? The most logical approach would probably be for the "eliminated" teams to continue playing one another until a definitive order is reached based on those results.

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Henrik Lundqvist is doing his part during the coronavirus pandemic.

The New York Rangers goaltender and his wife, Therese, will give $100,000 to the Food Bank For New York City through their foundation, he announced Wednesday.

Lundqvist said he and Therese were inspired after seeing so many people "doing so many good things for others right now."

The longtime netminder added that the food bank "always (does) a great job but now more than ever they need that extra support while they feed New Yorkers in need."

Other athletes across the sports world are also donating to causes aimed at mitigating the effects of the pandemic. PGA golfer Brooks Koepka pledged $100,000 toward COVID-19 relief efforts in Florida, while NBA players Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns each committed the same amount toward supporting various non-profit organizations and increasing testing capabilities, respectively.

The Food Bank For New York City has been the area's primary hunger-relief organization since 1983.

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The NHL's chief medical officer says it isn't yet possible to put a timetable on the league's return.

"... If we look where we are with this pandemic, it’s really just entering the rapid acceleration phase, certainly in North America, and if we look at our league, really we place our league in the context of the larger society, and we want to be doing our part to not only protect our players but also our staff and our fans as the disease unfolds,’’ Dr. Willem Meeuwisse said during a call with reporters Wednesday, according to The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun.

“It’s difficult to predict where the pandemic is going and what the timeline will be, but we do expect this is going to get worse before it gets better," the expert added.

Meeuwisse also explained what it will take for the NHL to consider returning to action after pausing its season March 12 due to the spread of the coronavirus.

“The specific circumstances are obviously going to depend on the pattern of the disease and specific risks at that time," he said. "That’s one of the difficulties, this thing is changing daily. And guidance from health authorities is changing daily based on the changing circumstances. I mean if we think of bringing people back together, we’d want to have some confidence that the players and the staff themselves are healthy, some confidence the players are not infectious at that time, and that bringing them back together even in small groups would not increase the risk of contracting or transmitting the coronavirus.

“And then we’d have to place that in the context of the larger society and the fact that we have people in 31 different market cities. And they’re likely to differ one city to the next.’’

The NHL extended its self-quarantine directive to players through April 4, deputy commissioner Bill Daly said on the same call Wednesday. The league initially instructed them to do so through March 27. The NHL has also asked its clubs for August arena dates, according to TSN's Bob McKenzie.

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