CBJ GM gets his feet wet with massive trades

"Thank you for joining this morning.  Yesterday, after consultation of our scouting staff, I have decided to pull two deals that I believe will change the make up of our team.  We would like to first of all thank Drew for all his contributions to the club and wish him all the best."

"It is never easy to deal someone like Mr Doughty as he's a franchise player who has proven himself in the league.  But when we were presented with the opportunity of acquiring Mr Hamilton we knew that we'd be getting a younger version of the franchise player who has a higher offensive upside, a bit more speed, and stronger on the puck. It is not often that you will see a large 6'6" defender in the league with his speed and strength that can play in all three zones.  We're thrilled to get him. In the deal we gave a fourth round pick in the super draft, but also aquired Subban, Puemple, and a 6th round pick.  Malcolm was a key proponent to make the deal happen.  One concern I had was the future of goaltending, and his acquisition undoubtfully removes that concern as he will be a very solid starter in a few years time once he refines his technique.  To seal the deal we also acquired Puemple. We needed some depth in our prospect pool on the LW and Matt will provide us with that.  If he continues to improve on his skating skills and strength, he will have a great chance of landing a permenant job in the EHE in the top 6."

"Now, the second trade.  I'm sure fans will be split on this, but we have traded two 2nd rounders and prospect Andreas Athanasiou for  Evgeny Kuznetsov.  Rest assured that we have consulted our scouting staff prior to making this tough decision.  It is always difficult to trade (the equivalent of) first round picks, but we have to remind ourselves that picks in drafts have no guarentees.  When dealing with first rounders you have to consider two things: prospect grading & likelihood of the player succeeding at playing in the EHE.  According to the prospect grading scale, the picks should give prospects in the 7.5C range, picks that might produce three top 6 players.  But you also have to put into consideration that historically the chances of these players making it to potential & actually play in the EHE is 22.5-27.5% (for later portion of the 1st round pick). When we considered all this, I decided it was beneficial for the club to acquire Evgeny who projects to be an elite top 3 player (8.5C prospect ranking) and who has already demonstrated that he can and will play in the league."

"In Evgeny Kuznetsov, we're getting a mixture of strength and skill.  He has flawless skating, stick handling and passing. His pass receiving skills along with a fearless desire to control the puck — particularly along the boards —and to control the puck and create scoring opportunities are top notch.  He still has parts of the game to work on like defensive responsiveness, but his willingness to improve areas in his game also works in his (our) favor. "

"That is all for now.  Thank you all"