The NHL is hoping its players can return to local team training facilities at "some point in the latter half of May," if local restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic will allow it.

"We are not targeting a specific date at this point in time," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN via email on Wednesday. "We are hoping for some point in the latter half of May. Remains to be seen."

Chief medical officers from major sports leagues participated in a call Tuesday with Seema Verma, who is a member of the White House coronavirus task force and administrator for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The call, according to a White House official, was to go over how sports play a role in President Donald Trump's plan for opening up America amid the coronavirus pandemic. Verma also updated league medical officials on the latest testing available and encouraged them to follow guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Chicago Blackhawks fired president and CEO John McDonough, the team announced Monday.

McDonough was hired by the Blackhawks in 2007 and was seen as a major architect of the Blackhawks' Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015. Before that, the team hadn't won a Cup since 1961.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman discussed a potential four-arena plan for a season restart, a draft held before the season is completed and fans returning to games during a wide-ranging interview with Sportsnet on Wednesday.

"Anything we're considering doing starts with health and well-being, whether it's the players or other personnel or fans or the community at large. Everybody is going through a tough time," Bettman told Ron MacLean on "In Conversation."

Sports around the world have only been on hiatus since mid-March, but when the numbers are crunched, the impact coronavirus has had on the industry will certainly leave an impact for years to come. Only 53% of the sports events originally scheduled for 2020 are likely to take place this calendar year.

That means, according to new projections from Two Circles, a sports marketing agency, just 26,424 sporting events will be held by the calendar-end of 2020 -- with the possibility that more are canceled as the virus spreads.

Wayne Gretzky is optimistic the NHL will be able to resume at some point this summer.

Gretzky told The Associated Press on Sunday he is hopeful hockey and other sports will be able to come back from the coronavirus pandemic and serve as a positive sign that conditions are improving.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr on Saturday said he has not yet had any discussions with the NHL about specific neutral-site locations for a potential Stanley Cup playoffs this summer.

"Other than the general understanding that they're looking at all possibilities, which includes neutral sites -- neutral being defined as a place that isn't a home base for an NHL team," Fehr told ESPN. "We haven't had those discussions yet."

Two-time Stanley Cup-winning forward Kris Versteeg is retiring after 11 NHL seasons.

The 33-year-old announced his decision through the NHL Players' Association on Tuesday, and after ending this season playing with his brother, Mitch, with Slovakia's HK Nitra.

Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty doesn't see how the NHL can complete its 2019-20 season during the coronavirus pandemic, even if postponed games are shifted to the middle of the summer.

"Honestly, I don't see how this season is going to return. I really don't," he said on a Monday conference call with reporters. "We have no idea when this virus is going to be over. We're all kind of just sitting at home, just hoping to return to the season or hoping to watch the playoffs return. But we're just sitting here, waiting, working out, being ready to return at any point. I think the NHL would have to make some kind of decision on that soon, and it seems like it's pretty tough to resume the season or the playoffs."

Cities and venues across North America have reached out to the NHL to pitch themselves as potential hosts for neutral-site playoff games, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN on Friday.

"We do have people putting together the comprehensive laundry list of what we would need from facilities and evaluating some facilities on some level," Daly said. "But I can't tell you we've even finished creating a list [of potential sites], much less narrowed it down."