Joe, let’s begin this interview by talking of this amazing playoff race in the Gretzky conference 

Yeah, that’s so fun to be in a race for a playoff spot at this time of the year. Everyone in the organisation are really excited about this situation. I do not think there are many people who thought we would be in this race after the very bad start to the season that the team had. With only 7 wins our 26 first games, even me was not thinking that we wold be 2 points behind from a playoff spot. 

What was your plan for this year trade deadline? 

First, we were not looking for rental players. Even if we are in a playoff spot, we wanted to stick to our plan and continue to rebuild our organisation with talented young player. To be honest, we wanted to explore the possibility to acquire a top dman and a #1 goalie for the next few years. Also, we were looking to get a 2nd line winger to fill a need for this playoff race. 

Can you tell us about the trade talks you add? 

Others GM doesn’t want to give this kind of information but I'll do it in order to be transparent with the fans. First, we asked Rangers GM for John Carlsson. We made a good first offer to him, but Martin decided that it was not enough. He wanted to steal 4 of our best prospects in our organisation + a 1st pick. There was no way I would give him so much. After this short discussion with the Rangers, we were asking for Dustin Byfuglien form Anaheim Ducks. When I put my first offer on the table, Stu told me that I was 2 seconds too late, big Buff was traded to the Hawks. The third discussion was for Josh Bailey. I think we were close to get him, be he landed to the Rangers. To finish the day, we put an offer for Ben Bishop, but I think that LA Gm was not interested in trading with us. 

You finally closed a deal at the end of the day. Why did you trade Eric Fehr to Carolina? 

Well, Kevin put this offer on the table, and I thought that this was a good trade according to our plan. Jack Kopacka is a prospect we think that will be useful for our team in the future. It’s a good price r Eric Fehr, I think. 

Thank you for this Joe. Best of luck for the rest of the season !

Thank you buddy.