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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 13, 2008Don WaddellDAVID KEON: We have with us now Atlanta head coach and general manager Don Waddell. Q. I'm just curious, you had a couple of years now to kind of work with the new CBA, and you've had a deadline to do that with. Has the art of the trade changed at all in the new circumstances? DON WADDELL: Well, it certainly has. I think listening to previous speakers, you know, managing the cap not only today but going forward, making sure you have enough room to do the things you want to do. Last year we made a lot of deadline deals and we had a lot of cap space to be able to make those deals. So whether it's managing the cap or, as Paul just said about protecting your assets, trying to move forward, we're all trying to win today but we've got to remember that there is a tomorrow. And I think that's something that we ought to keep in our minds here. Q. Has it become a more conservative thing than maybe in the past where almost anything was doable? You could just kind of pluck things out of the air and say we'll trade this and trade that? Has it become more of a formula exercise? DON WADDELL: Before, money was never an issue. Teams that could afford to spend more money and, you know, there used to be money involved in trades and everything else. So all those days are all behind us. So certainly I think the aspect of the job has changed, again, with the new CBA, for many reasons, not just for a cap but unrestricted free agent at an earlier age. Those are things you need to be aware of when you're trading players and trading for players. Q. Don, probably no better example of the new NHL and new CBA than the Atlanta Thrashers in the sense that you could be a buyer and seller at the same time. You're contending for your division and at the same time you're also looking at the big picture. How difficult is that right now from where you sit? DON WADDELL: Well, certainly, as we all know, we have one of our stars that's up in the air. If we don't sign the player, then we've got to make a decision whether we're going to trade that player or ride him out for the rest of the year and try to keep our team as strong as we can. The buying and selling, if we decide to trade a player, might happen all in the same equation, because certainly if we do take the player to the marketplace, we're hoping that we're able to be able to get back assets that not only would help us today but help us in the future. Q. Not to put words in your mouth, but is that an indication that if you do have to trade Marian - and, obviously, I know you still want to sign him instead, but if you have to trade him, that you'd rather make more of a hockey deal as opposed to getting draft picks? DON WADDELL: No doubt about it. If we're just looking at draft picks, we've got to take a step back and say, hey, those draft picks are going to be valuable to us three, four years from now, and you're not even sure what you're going to get in the draft. When you have a known player, as we do with Hossa - you know, we won the Southeast Division the last year, I believe we're in a position were we could repeat and win it again this year. To me, that's got to be our first goal is to make sure that we get ourselves in the playoffs. As Paul said, once you get there, you never know what happens. Saying that, we also got to keep the eye on the long-term future of our franchise. Q. Have you tried or are you interested in Peter Forsberg? DON WADDELL: I'd be wrong if I said I wouldn't be interested in Peter Forsberg. I haven't spoken with the agent real recently here. We had spoken early on. And obviously I think we all know what Peter's hopes are, and so I think as we sit here today I think everybody's waiting for Peter to make a decision, first of all, if he's going to play in the NHL and where he's going to end up going. Q. Would it be too much of a gamble to sign him with his weight and his injury background? DON WADDELL: No, I don't think so. You're signing one of the marquee players that's played in the game. There's gambles on every player you sign. I think the biggest thing is Peter - this is a player that knows his body better than anybody. And obviously if he's just out for money and that, he could have signed a contract a long time ago and came in and played some games. But he hasn't done that because he's a proud athlete and wants to make sure that if he is going to commit to a team, he's ready to; if a team's going to commit to him, that he's ready to commit back to them. So I wouldn't have any doubts if he was - if Atlanta was one of his destinations. Certainly we'd be for sure very interested in having a player like that. Q. Can you say something about Tobias Enstrom? DON WADDELL: I can't say enough about this young player, came over and watched him last year in the World Championships and thought he was one of the best defensemen there. Really composed with the puck. Very rare does he put himself in a bad spot. He usually makes the right play. And for a player to come in and lead our team in minutes played, he's been a tremendous player for us and he's only going to get better. Remember, it's his first year in the league. I think he's going to be an All-Star in this league for a lot of years to come. Q. I was just wondering, considering what happened with you last year in your deadline deals for Tkachuk and Zhitnik, has that changed your attitude toward this year's deadline and has it also changed the ownership's attitude? Are they looking at deadline deals with a different eye not only because of what happened last year, but just because of the new CBA in itself? DON WADDELL: I think going back to last year, we had a tremendous first half of the year, then we couldn't win in January. We only won a couple of games. We were one time 12 points up on our division or playoff spot and at the trade deadline we were one point. So we really feel strongly that if we didn't make the deals we would not have made - not only have made the playoffs but not win our division, of course. And for our franchise last year, you know, we paid a price. But it was a price that we felt we had to pay because we were in our seventh year of our existence. Hadn't been in the playoffs yet. Had a tremendous first half of the year. We're still trying to build this market, build the interest in hockey. We knew that we had to make a statement last year. And so rewinding to last year, last year served us, yes. Certainly we'd like to go deeper in the playoffs, but last year, if we don't make those deals, I don't think we get in the playoffs. Q. What about the ownership? Have they had any kind of change of heart this year like when you're talking to them about what you'd like to do at the deadline? DON WADDELL: No, I actually had a meeting with all of them this morning. As always, they've always said, bring any deal to us and we'll discuss it. But I can also say any deal I've ever taken to them it's always been approved. So if it's the right deal that makes sense for us, this year, I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to move forward as we have in the past. Q. The deal that you made and the one Garth made on Long Island are held by some GMs - I've heard it referenced as sort of a cautionary tale against spending too much on a deal at this deadline. Do you think this year that GMs will show more restraint than they have in the past? Or when it comes right down to it with so little between the teams, will the possibility of acquiring an impact player just be too much for people to resist and we're going to see huge prices paid again? DON WADDELL: I think the latter, for sure. And I'll tell you why. Because we all talk about free agency and July 1st. And all it takes is one team to step forward. And then we talked about it last year on July 1st and looked at the deals that were done right away and some of the monies paid. So all it takes is one team to want to do something and that usually sparks other teams to try to match or stay even with them. So I won't be surprised if there's deals made again this year that come with a very high price. And the price for a lot of these teams is what success they end up having. It won't be measured at the time the trade is made. It's obviously measured once the season is over. Q. Have you had a deadline for Hossa? The clock is ticking; it's two weeks to the trading deadline. Have you told Rich, Look, I gotta know by this weekend or something because I gotta get on this? And the other question I have is you mentioned about you're just not going to take whatever you can get in terms of the down-the-road things for Hossa. Is that because you traded Dany Heatley for Hossa? You traded a great player to get a great player. You can't just say, I'll take a couple of draft picks and a couple of young players. DON WADDELL: No. Certainly the second question, not at all. That deal was made for lots of reasons. And that deal helped both teams. And Ottawa's been able to re-sign Dany, which he's been a great player for them and he's having a great career, which we all expected would happen. So, no, it has no bearing at all on that. The first part of your question was the deadline with Rich. No, there's no deadline. Certainly we are coming up. We all know this. It's like everything else: When there's a date that you have to do something by, both sides have to make decisions and move on. We have remained and our number one goal is to sign this player. And in the meantime - you know, we're in a big race here. He's one of our most important players. So we're utilizing the player as much as we can to try to make sure that we stay in contention. And if you're going to trade - if you end up trading a player for lesser players right now, makes more sense to keep the players for as long as you can to try to establish yourself within your division. Q. Have you told teams to just hang tight here? DON WADDELL: I've had lots of phone calls. Best friends with a lot of guys here in the league in the last few weeks, but I've told them all I've not solicited or had an offer made. I told them I don't want to get into that at this point. Our goal has been to sign him. Certainly we've done all our homework and I know what teams obviously have talked to that will be interested. If we ever get to that point, I'm pretty confident that there will be multiple teams that will be interested in Marian. Q. You folks are probably as talent rich at the AHL level as any organization, folks like Bryan Little and Brett Sterling. What are your general thoughts about what you have in the organization and can you speak to Brett Sterling in particular? DON WADDELL: That's one of the reasons why last year we felt we could give up our first-round pick, because we finally - back to the question earlier about Enstrom, we're finally seeing the dividends. The draft takes a long time. This is our eighth season playing. I can remember Gary Bettman last year when he presented the Stanley Cup to Brian Burke and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and he said, In only their 15th year they've won a Stanley Cup. To me that was the ultimate statement, because it takes time to build up your assets. You're going to have draft after draft and you might get one, two, three players out of a draft and they get depth in the organization. Takes many, many years of draft. So we finally felt last year we were in a pretty good position where we had never traded our first-round pick before. That we could trade our first-round pick to try to help our club right now. So we feel really good about our young players and where we're headed with them. Brett Sterling, rookie last year, 53 goals, came up here this year. Haven't put him in the most opportune situations to succeed. Obviously playing behind Kolvalchuk and Kozlov and some of those other guys on the left side haven't given him the best opportunity. But I know we sent him back down and I think he's got 25 goals again in less than 40 games or so in the American League. This guy can score. And I think he can score at every level. So we're real happy with having Brett in our organization and part of our future. DAVID KEON: Thanks very much, Don. End of FastScripts |
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