Dallas Stars president Jim Lites and general manager Jim Nill have taken 50% cuts in salary while the NHL season is paused due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nill told ESPN on Wednesday.
The salary cuts were voluntary and not related to any team staffing reductions.
“As soon as this virus hit and we started to see where things were going, we knew it was going to hit [owner Tom Gaglardi] hard, as he’s in the hotel/restaurant business. And that it was going to hit all of us. We just thought this was the right thing for our organization to do,” Nill told ESPN.
“We’re just looking to help somebody else. Jim and I are very fortunate. The game’s been great to us. But within our organization, we have a lot of younger people working who live paycheck to paycheck. We hope this is something that can help them down the road.”
NHL teams are beginning to react financially to the season being halted on March 12.
The Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins this week announced layoffs for salaried employees. The New Jersey Devils announced they were cutting salaries by 20%, before owner Josh Harris reversed that decision and apologized publicly for it.
Nill said there are still talks internally for the Stars about staffing and finances.
“But we felt that if we got ahead of this ourselves, maybe that helps out that part of it,” he said.