Due the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has brought the NHL and the rest of the sports world to a halt, the Arizona Coyotes announced on Friday that they have temporary cut stuff through furloughs, effective through June 30.

The cuts will effect 50 per cent of the organization's employees, but the furloughed employees will continue to get 100 per cent of their health benefits covered.

"The developing COVID-19 situation is having a huge impact on our community and, like many companies, we are working through the challenges during this unprecedented time," said Coyotes' Owner, Chairman and Governor Alex Meruelo. "This was an extremely difficult decision for me and my family. We never anticipated that the situation would escalate to the point of shutting down some of our businesses. It doesn't appear that the NHL will resume play in the immediate future, so this decision was necessary. We all remain hopeful that hockey will be back soon and look forward to welcoming back our team members at that time. It's never easy to take steps that affect the lives of our team members and their families and I would like to thank them for their patience and understanding during this very difficult time. We will get through this together."

Meruelo announced on March 16 that he would pay the team's and arena's part-time/hourly employees for the remaining four regular season games.

The NHL season was suspended on March 12 with no indication if and when it may return this season.