Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper believes the players' league-wide unification - which paused games for two days to help combat racial injustice - is a big step in the right direction for the NHL.

"The league's learning just like everyone else, and the league's in a better place today than it was a couple months ago, and definitely than it was a couple years ago," Cooper said during his media availability Friday.

The NHL was under fire Wednesday night after proceeding with it's scheduled games despite the NBA, WNBA, and MLB calling off contests to protest the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The Lightning played Game 3 of their series versus the Boston Bruins that night, and after Tampa's win, Cooper said the NHL needs to take notice of racial injustice.

He added Friday that since the victory, his club hasn't focused on hockey at all.

"I'll tell you one thing, after coming off back-to-back wins over the Bruins, I don't think we've even talked about that, which is rare in a playoff year," Cooper said. "Clearly our attention has been elsewhere, and justifiably."

Players from all the active second-round teams, along with the Hockey Diversity Alliance, opened dialogue Thursday and opted to delay playing all games until Saturday.

Afterward, there was a press conference in each bubble city where several players delivered powerful messages, including Vegas Golden Knights forward Ryan Reaves, who said he believes the statement he and his peers made is "going to last."

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The NHL is investigating an allegation regarding former Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon's conduct in the Toronto bubble, deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed to ESPN's Emily Kaplan.

Tallon is said to have used a racial slur, reports Florida Hockey Now's George Richards.

The Panthers told Richards they would not comment, and Tallon hasn't responded to Richards' attempts to contact him.

Florida and Tallon - who was the team's GM and president of hockey operations - parted ways Aug. 10, three days after the New York Islanders eliminated the Panthers in the qualifying round.

However, Tallon's departure had nothing to do with the ongoing investigation, a team source told Richards. The NHL was only recently made aware of the alleged incident, and it subsequently informed the club.

Tallon spent a decade with the Panthers after serving as the Chicago Blackhawks' GM from 2005-09.

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Find line reports, best bets, and subscribe to push notifications in the Betting News section.

With a couple days off from hockey to shed light on far more important issues, it's as good a time as any to revisit the Stanley Cup oddsboard.

Our last update came at the start of Round 1, but there's been plenty of movement since then with the field slashed in half.

Vegas Golden Knights (+300)

No playoff team has controlled a greater share of expected goals - overall and five-on-five - in the bubble than the Knights, who have overwhelmed everyone they've faced thus far with talent and depth. If their goaltending holds up - Robin Lehner has been inconsistent at best in these playoffs - there may be no stopping this team.

Tampa Bay Lightning (+340)

Anything longer than 3-1 is worth scooping up for this Lightning team, which has few, if any, weaknesses. As well as the Islanders are playing, and as dangerous as the Flyers can be, the Bruins are their toughest test to get out of the East. Tampa is passing with flying colors so far, but should it make the Stanley Cup Final, the services of Steven Stamkos will be required.

Philadelphia Flyers (+700)

Since the playoffs began, we've seen nothing from the Flyers to suggest even contemplating buying in at these short odds. Carter Hart can steal games, and the talent is certainly there, but no team remaining in the playoffs has controlled a lower share of expected goals at five-on-five.

Colorado Avalanche (+700)

Injuries are catching up to the Avalanche at the worst time. Philipp Grubauer and Erik Johnson are out for the foreseeable future, Matt Calvert remains unfit to play, and now Nikita Zadorov and Joonas Donskoi are day-to-day. This is a deep team loaded with talent, but at this stage of the season that's a lot of adversity to overcome. Trailing 2-1 in their series, with a real question mark in goal, +700 isn't long enough.

Dallas Stars (+725)

Instead why not go with one of the league's hotter teams, who are leading their series, and close to full health? The Stars can defend as well as anyone, but the knock on them has always been scoring. Well, they've scored 28 goals in their last six games and are showing no signs of slowing down.

Boston Bruins (+800)

This two-day pause - while much bigger than hockey - will do a lot of good for the Bruins, who were looking fatigued in a 7-1 loss to the Lightning in Game 3. Some rest could revive their chances to win this series, but it's asking a lot for Jaroslav Halak to carry the load in net for an extended run.

New York Islanders (+950)

Few teams have played better hockey in the bubble than the Islanders, who are good value at the current price. They've allowed the lowest expected goals against per 60 minutes among all teams remaining in the playoffs and have the best five-on-five save percentage. Barry Trotz's fingerprints are all over this team and that's a very good thing.

Vancouver Canucks (+1700)

The Canucks have done really well for themselves in these playoffs and continue to impress, but there's a cap on how far this team can really go. Even with Jacob Markstrom playing out of this world, this team doesn't have the depth needed to get by Vegas, then Colorado or Dallas, and likely Tampa.

(Odds source: theScore Bet)

Alex Moretto is a sports betting writer for theScore. A journalism graduate from Guelph-Humber University, he has worked in sports media for over a decade. He will bet on anything from the Super Bowl to amateur soccer, is too impatient for futures, and will never trust a kicker. Find him on Twitter @alexjmoretto.

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The NHL has released an updated schedule following the postponement of Thursday and Friday's playoff contests.

The league followed the NBA and other professional sports in pausing all games in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The decision was ignited by the Hockey Diversity Alliance, co-headed by Akim Aliu and Evander Kane, who challenged the league to take action.

Play will resume with Game 4 between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins on Saturday at 12 p.m. ET. Below is the updated schedule for each of the four remaining series:

All times ET

Philadelphia Flyers vs. New York Islanders

(*If necessary)

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Boston Bruins

Vegas Golden Knights vs. Vancouver Canucks

Colorado Avalanche vs. Dallas Stars

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About 24 hours after the Milwaukee Bucks didn't take the court in the NBA playoff bubble, Kenneth Shropshire got to thinking about the sports world's mass boycott of apartheid South Africa, the biggest mobilization of activist athletes in history. The segregated nation was barred for decades from international competition, including the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where U.S. sprint medalists John Carlos and Tommie Smith each raised a fist in support of human rights.

Shropshire, a distinguished professor of global sport at Arizona State University, brought up 1968 to make a point: even that worldwide action didn't cascade quite like the Bucks' refusal to play Wednesday.

The players were protesting the latest exhibition of American police violence against Black people: the shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last weekend, which followed the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others. The NBA's entire active playing corps soon sat out in turn. So did the WNBA's whole bubble, MLB and MLS clubs, and tennis star Naomi Osaka, scrubbing multiple days' worth of matchups across the sporting spectrum.

"It's going to be at the top of the list of athlete activism in the history of man," Shropshire said of the sit-outs. "The Olympic protest in 1968, and Muhammad Ali, and Colin Kaepernick - all those individually were something. This (was momentous) in terms of the snowball effect."

As several NFL teams canceled practice and NHL players forced their league to postpone playoff games Thursday, theScore spoke with four race and sports scholars about the significance of the sit-outs, the power this form of protest confers, and the rich legacy of Black athletes taking stands against racism. The scholars are:

• Akilah Carter-Francique, professor of African American history at San Jose State University and the executive director of the school's Institute for the Study of Sport, Society, and Social Change.

• Louis Moore, associate professor of history at Grand Valley State University and the author of the 2017 book "We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality."

• Theresa Runstedtler, professor of African American history at American University and the author of a forthcoming book on how Black players transformed pro basketball on and off the court in the 1970s.

• Shropshire, who wrote the 1996 book "In Black and White: Race and Sports in America."

Their thoughts, shared in separate phone conversations, have been condensed and edited for clarity.

How will Aug. 26, 2020, be remembered? When you think about sports and what athletes have done to oppose anti-Black racism, how momentous a day was it?

Carter-Francique: I think it will be a day that we remember as a day of solidarity. We have the collective efforts of these professional athletes, men and women, using their platform to speak for the voiceless. They've come together to speak out for social justice, for the lives lost due to police violence and police brutality.

Moore: It's huge because we were all watching. Everybody was tuned in and everybody was talking about it. It's not the first (athlete) strike, or however you want to say it. Unfortunately, we've forgotten a lot of those, outside of maybe the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967-68.

The way memory works now, people are going to remember not necessarily that it was Aug. 26, but that time the Bucks had a strike or a boycott. And then what followed next: MLB, WNBA, tennis, even the NHL.

This all started not with the NBA, but in the NBA, with Bucks players opting not to play Wednesday after the Raptors and Celtics discussed doing that for Thursday's game. What does that say about these players and the NBA's workforce generally - that they took the initiative to sit out?

Runstedtler: The league has to actually listen to them. The NBA having this image as being a "woke" league, it's a consequence of the players having a certain degree of power in order to make it woke. It's not just the benevolence of the team owners and NBA administrators. The players are driving it.

Shropshire: (In the NFL in recent years), there were real and believed banishments of players because of their involvement in social activism. That hasn't, in this recent time, happened with players in the NBA. They've been able to speak freely without even the shrouded version of, "How did this person end up not in the league anymore?"

Part of that is the superstar status that led the way: LeBron James, in an unprecedented way, being by many calculations the best player in the league, speaking out in the way that he has.

Moore: You think of (Fred) VanVleet. He's known, because he's a hustler, but he's not a super-duper star. I think that's big. (He's) very good, by the way, for Canadian folks, but an average player in the NBA was able to say something that gets the ball rolling. And then, boom, the Bucks did what they had to do.

Outside of the NBA, WNBA players, from Maya Moore on down the line, have long been at the forefront of social activism. MLB and MLS players and Naomi Osaka followed the Bucks' lead by sitting out in solidarity. What message is sent when athletes across sports decline to compete?

Shropshire: That's the part that's truly unique. It resonates with the old adage: There's strength in numbers.

Wherever there is some fragility - "Is my job in danger if I do this?" - the idea of initially an entire team and then an entire league joining in makes it much more powerful and provides greater leverage for changes that they seek. That it catapulted into other leagues, that's the amazing thing of the day: how rapidly it spread.

Carter-Francique: Black bodies have been used as labor and entertainment for so long. Sport, much like movies, often provides a space of escapism. The push to get those players to play and to participate (in the resumption of sports) was part of that urge. But in that same vein, as Black entertainers, this is the platform they have to present themselves and share their voice.

(What they're voicing now) is something very special. It's not just one voice or one athlete or two athletes, as we think of Tommie Smith and John Carlos having that historical 1968 stand. Today we have this collective voice to support the voices of others who are also doing the work: legislators, educators, those who are promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Moore: You can talk and talk and talk, but now, it's like, "We're going to withdraw our labor," at a time when (the leagues) are banking on it to make back the money that they lost. Moving forward, anytime something like this comes up, the owners are going to have to listen. The next step is not just, "Oh, we want to wear T-shirts." It's, "Oh, we might not play tonight."

If play resumes in each sport after a couple of days, what impact do you think the players' actions will have? Who needs to step up and what needs to happen from here for their sit-out to set in motion the change they desire?

Runstedtler: That's the million-dollar question. It's symbolic, in some ways: they're withholding their labor to make a point that, "We are not going to be entertaining America and pretending that everything is OK while, literally, people are being shot in the streets."

What is the connection between that and the kind of policy change that we need? I'm not entirely sure. But I do think that athletes have a certain level of cultural and social capital. If they are willing to take a stand very visibly in the media, it adds emphasis to whatever is happening out in the street. It adds to this sense of urgency - that things need to start changing.

Carter-Francique: The opportunity to have this pause is really good. It's an opportunity for athletes to sit and be at the table with the owners and the GMs. That's a rarity. They can work together - (with) the NBA and WNBA already promoting some of these social justice initiatives and symbolism - to begin to move forward with actionable items.

I have to commend the WNBA and their statement: talking about voting, pushing the agenda of voting in 2020, or calling your legislators and making your voice heard in the census report. Athletes, coaches, sponsors, all those that are involved, (need) to find ways they can contribute to push the needle forward when we talk about social justice and social change.

In the wake of George Floyd's death and again this week, a lot of NBA players wrestled with the decision to resume the season during this reckoning over racism and police brutality. On Wednesday, of course, they were in the bubble when they made the call to halt play. What leverage or power does that setting - the platform of this bubbled postseason - give them?

Shropshire: It's like a convention. They're all in one place. They're all right there and have the opportunity to work together.

Runstedtler: If there's any situation that's going to facilitate action on the part of all of the players in the league, it's that. Having them all together in that one space and seeing more Black trauma and Black death, and they're all there together in isolation, only compounds the sense of urgency to do something and the ability to organize and get everybody on the same page.

Moore: It's a lot easier to speak about these things than to text about these things. The communication for them is clear.

They're a unified force. That's a significant chunk of players who are still there willing to put their reputations on the line to fight for justice. Being there gives them some power still.

Louis, you spotlighted on Twitter on Wednesday the history of police brutalizing Black athletes, from Jack Johnson and Jackie Robinson all the way to the Bucks' Sterling Brown by Milwaukee police in 2018. How do you think that history, both distant and recent - personal, even - shaped what players have done this week?

Moore: I'm not sure if they know that history. They knew Sterling Brown and what some players have been through. But one thing I guarantee they know is people in their communities. Policing, for a lot of these guys, is always present in their lives. I think what they realize, especially with someone like Sterling Brown, is that you can never escape it.

It doesn't matter how famous you are. If we look at police protests in America, it always starts over just some guy. The way these things work is it doesn't really matter who that guy is. It's the realization among Black folks that that could be them at any time.

There's a rich history of Black athletes taking initiative to sit out of competitions or to protest racial injustice in other forms. When you were processing Wednesday's events, did you get to thinking about any particular retired athlete who took such a stand? What does their story say about what's happening now?

Moore: Specifically for the NBA, it's Bill Russell. He was part of the boycott in 1961 among Black basketball players for the Celtics and the Hawks. It's the last time you saw this in the NBA.

In general, you have somebody like Jackie Robinson, who spoke out against police brutality a number of times. The first time you see it publicly is in front of Congress in 1949.

Jackie's Mount Rushmore, and Bill's up there, too. These are major athletes who have been involved in a boycott and/or (opposing) police brutality. My job, (on Twitter), I always try to quickly give that context: here's the history of this that we should know. Jackie and Bill always come up.

Runstedtler: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was a Buck for many years, but even before that, one thing he decided when it was time for Team USA to be put together for the '68 Olympics - he chose not to be part of that at all. He went back home and did some community work. When they interviewed him after the fact, he basically said, "I can't compete for a country that's not mine. There's too much injustice in the U.S. for me to participate."

The fact the players were able to (sit out this week) so quickly and so forcefully, and in large part have been supported by the teams, owners, and also their fans, is a testament to the shifting terrain of professional sports and how much more power Black players actually do have in this moment to go off script - to not just, quote-unquote, shut up and play.

Shropshire: The four people I always think of are John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, and Muhammad Ali, all in that one space and what they had to suffer after the fact to allow these athletes today to do what they do. Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion, and Joe Louis were transitional figures.

The one I think is undercovered as having taken courageous steps, when he delivered a letter (about) the plight of Black Americans when the Chicago Bulls went to the White House after winning a championship: Craig Hodges, who was a great 3-point shooter and who many say as a result of his political activism, before Kaepernick, was not able to get a job in the NBA after he took his political stance.

It's people like that. It is Hodges. It is certainly Kaepernick. It's those people who came before those who are doing the heavy lifting today.

Carter-Francique: Here at San Jose State, we think immediately of (SJSU alumni) Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but even those during the '68 time period who chose not to go to the Olympic Games.

There are multiple ways to address such a complex issue, just as there's multiple ways to address social change. Whether it be through demonstration and boycott, whether it be through education, whether it be through legislation, or using your social media platform, we've got to really embrace that and understand that all actions, all efforts to be on the right side of history, are important.

We have to use all of our energies, efforts, and resources to combat this issue of racism.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

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The Arizona Coyotes are taking action in the fight against racial injustice.

"We are committed to being a part of the solution to drive positive change and are working with the City of Glendale to make Gila River Arena a polling station for the 2020 election," the club said in a statement Thursday night.

The Coyotes added their full support of NHL players and the Hockey Diversity Alliance, and the team embraces their "responsibility to all communities of color to not stay silent."

NHL players, in partnership with the HDA, drove the league to postpone its games through Friday in response to similar actions taken by players in several leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, and MLB. The Milwaukee Bucks started the historic movement following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Voter suppression, which often includes the elimination of polling stations, has disproportionately affected Black and other minority voters, according to the ACLU.

Last year, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights found southern U.S. states have closed nearly 1,200 polling places since 2013 after the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, according to Reuters' Andy Sullivan.

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Dodgers also partnered recently to create a polling place at Dodger Stadium for the upcoming federal election.

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