The New Jersey Devils are taking a proactive approach while the NHL remains on hiatus.

Devils interim general manager Tom Fitzgerald has spoken with former Vegas Golden Knights bench boss Gerard Gallant about New Jersey's head coaching position, TSN's Pierre LeBrun reported on Tuesday's edition of "Insider Trading."

"Gerard Gallant, according to our sources, (was) interviewed last week," LeBrun said, before adding that the conversation with Fitzgerald took place virtually rather than face to face.

Fitzgerald has spoken to several candidates, according to LeBrun, who wrote shortly thereafter on The Athletic that Devils interim head coach Alain Nasreddine is a legitimate candidate to keep the job.

The Golden Knights fired Gallant, replacing him with Peter DeBoer in a surprise move back in January. Vegas was 24-19-6 at the time, and the team sat only three points back of first place in the Pacific Division despite being on the outside of the playoff picture.

Gallant won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's top head coach for 2017-18 after guiding the Golden Knights to a playoff berth and a run to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. He spent parts of three campaigns with Vegas after tenures of similar lengths with the Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets.

Nasreddine took over behind the Devils' bench on an interim basis after the dismissal of John Hynes in early December. Under Nasreddine, the Devils have gone 19-16-8.

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The NHL's central registry department has rejected the Columbus Blue Jackets' signing of Mikhail Grigorenko because of a misunderstanding regarding the filing window, the team confirmed Monday night.

However, the club has been in contact with Grigorenko's agent, Dan Milstein, and the NHL, and the contract will be filed on July 1.

The pact reportedly went against section 50.8 of the league's CBA, according to TVA's Renaud Lavoie. That section states:

"No club or player may enter into a (standard player contract) that does not cover at least the then-current league year. The foregoing does not apply to an SPC entered into pursuant to Section 50.5(f) above, or to unsigned draft choices or draft-related unrestricted free agents, who shall be permitted to sign an SPC during the period from March 1 through June 1 immediately preceding the league year in which such SPC is to take effect."

The Blue Jackets inked Grigorenko - a former NHL forward who's spent the last three seasons in the KHL - to a one-year deal for the 2020-21 campaign Monday morning.

The NHL paused the 2019-20 season on March 12 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Colby Cave and his wife, Emily, were working toward adding a third member to their family before he died earlier this month.

The couple had planned a trip to Haiti to pursue the adoption of a child, Emily told The Athletic's Daniel Nugent-Bowman.

"Instead of celebrating our first anniversary, we thought, 'Let's go back and see if we find a kid that we'd love to be a part of our family,'" she said. "Unfortunately, we won’t be doing that."

Emily booked a trip to the Caribbean country in November but had to cancel when the Oilers demoted Colby to their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, after which she said he felt terrible.

They were looking into a solution early in 2020 but had to postpone again when the Canadian and American governments both cautioned against traveling to Haiti due to protests there.

The adoption process can take years to complete, so they were trying to get the ball rolling, according to Nugent-Bowman. Emily wanted to give birth first, then adopt one of the opposite gender, before having a third. She wanted a child from Haiti because her father had worked at an orphanage and missionary facility there.

"I know Colby would want me to go back," she said. "When the time is right, I wanna go back for sure - just not necessarily to adopt anymore. That was a big plan in our future, kids and adopting."

Colby died at the age of 25 in a Toronto hospital on April 11, several days after undergoing emergency surgery to remove a colloid cyst causing pressure on his brain. He'd been hospitalized following a brain bleed and was placed in a medically induced coma following the procedure.

Emily, who turns 27 on Sunday, and Colby got married last July.

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NHL players and executives have been tuning in to classic broadcasts during the league's hiatus, and the differences between modern hockey and that of yesteryear aren't lost on them.

"It's hilarious how much the game's changed equipment-wise (and) penalty-wise," Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner told The Canadian Press' Joshua Clipperton. "It's kind of funny seeing the hooks and holds, and how you're allowed to do it and allowed to get away with it."

Montreal Canadiens defenseman Ben Chiarot also finds it amusing to see how the league was officiated back in the day.

"That's pretty much all I've been watching on TV, those rewind games," Chiarot said. "It's hilarious when you see Bobby Orr skating and some guy's got his stick wrapped around his waist the whole trip from blue line to blue line. Sometimes I think, 'That wouldn't be too bad if I could just latch my stick on someone and slow him down.'"

The NHL cracked down on obstruction following the 2004-05 lockout with several rule changes meant to reward speed and skill.

"What the hell was a penalty back then?" Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving quipped. "It's unbelievable watching some of these games and just the manslaughter that took place every shift."

Shortly after the NHL paused its season on March 12 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the league began streaming classic games on YouTube. It's now doing so four times a week. Television networks like Sportsnet in Canada have also been airing certain historic contests.

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NHL players are putting off deciding what to do with their final paycheck of the season until May 15, reports TSN's Pierre LeBrun.

Players have reportedly been mulling whether to return all or some of the last payment in order to bolster escrow amid the postponed campaign.

They will receive last season's escrow return next week, according to LeBrun. Approximately $140 million will potentially be owed to the players on the final paycheck, he adds.

When the NHL paused its season due to the coronavirus pandemic on March 12, the league reportedly told team owners to give the players their final three payments, two of which were to come in March with the other scheduled for April.

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After nearly a decade of staying mum about the Buffalo Sabres, Larry Quinn is speaking up.

The former Sabres minority owner broke his silence Friday to question the mass firings made by the team's parent company, Pegula Sports and Entertainment, earlier in the week.

"As you've noticed, I have not made a single comment about the Sabres since we left," Quinn told The Athletic's John Vogl on Friday. "I have practiced that religiously. But this is - I just don't understand. It's just wrong."

"Treat them right - and this is not right. ... It's just staggering to me," Quinn added.

PSE fired 21 employees - reportedly including three longtime members of the organization - and furloughed 104 more on Tuesday, though The Athletic's Tim Graham clarified that only the furloughs were due to the coronavirus pandemic and that cutbacks were planned before the NHL paused its season.

Quinn was part of the club's previous ownership group led by former majority owner Tom Golisano. They sold it to its current owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, in 2011.

The former minority owner said he didn't want his comments to be seen as an "attack" on the Pegulas, but he did question the current owners' treatment of their tenured employees.

"There's something wrong. I don't know what it is," Quinn said. "I know there's challenges in the business, and I understand that people from time to time have to make economic choices. But you treat the people well that have worked for you for a long time if you've got to part ways, and I just don't get it."

The Sabres were one of the only NHL teams that refused to pay their hourly workers for shifts lost amid the shutdown.

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Blake Wheeler has one word for Donald Trump.

On Saturday, the Winnipeg Jets captain responded directly to the U.S. president's plea to end Minnesota's lockdown on Twitter.

Wheeler's ties to Minnesota run deep. He was born in Plymouth and grew up in nearby Robbinsdale, both of which aren't far from Minneapolis. The 33-year-old also spent three years at the University of Minnesota before beginning his NHL career.

Trump, who's repeatedly expressed his goal of reopening the U.S. economy in spite of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, fired off a series of "liberate" tweets Friday. They were an apparent attempt to put pressure on Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia legislators to lift stay-at-home orders put in place to slow the spread of the virus.

On Friday afternoon, following the president's tweets, a few hundred protesters assembled outside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's house in St. Paul, according to NBC News. One sign reportedly read, "If ballots don't free us, bullets will."

The gathering followed similar ones in New York, Michigan, and Ohio, among others.

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No one can say Doug Armstrong is slacking during the NHL's hiatus.

The St. Louis Blues general manager finalized his third signing in as many days Friday, inking forward Mackenzie MacEachern to a two-year deal with an average annual value of $900,000. It's a one-way contract that begins in 2020-21.

MacEachern, who was a pending restricted free agent, collected seven goals and 10 points in 50 games before the pause. The 26-year-old is in his second season with the Blues, who drafted him 67th overall in 2012.

St. Louis signed defenseman Marco Scandella to a four-year extension Thursday after agreeing to a new two-year pact with forward Sammy Blais on Wednesday.

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Dustin Byfuglien is officially a free agent.

The Winnipeg Jets and the veteran defenseman have resolved their dispute by terminating his contract effective immediately, the NHL and NHLPA announced Friday.

Byfuglien filed a grievance through the players' association after the Jets suspended him in September for failing to report to training camp.

The 35-year-old's contract would have expired following the 2020-21 season and would have paid him a base salary of $6 million during that campaign, according to CapFriendly. The deal carried a $7.6-million cap hit.

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The Edmonton Oilers and the family of the late Colby Cave have established a fund to carry on his memory, the club announced Tuesday.

Proceeds will be donated to community programs with an emphasis on mental health initiatives, and those that give underprivileged children access to sports.

Cave, who died at the age of 25 on Saturday after suffering a brain bleed earlier in the week, was a "committed and positive member of the communities in which he played, eagerly volunteering for charitable initiatives and always stopping to say hi to fans," according to the team.

The forward's death elicited an immediate outpouring of grief from all corners of the hockey world. Residents in his hometown of Battleford, Saskatchewan also showed support upon the family's return to the province by lining a local highway on Monday.

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