NHL ENTRY DRAFT

June 23, 2001

Wayne Gretzky

WAYNE GRETZKY: It's not official yet.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, it's hard to compare because I never got drafted. So from that point of view, I didn't get that feeling, but it was exciting for us because we had so many picks early. And we felt that obviously redoing this team, that this was an important draft for us and so our guys worked really hard in getting what we wanted and the players that we needed to give us a strong future. So today was obviously a big day for our organization.

WAYNE GRETZKY: It's pretty simple. When you have a team that's battling for eighth and ninth place and you have a $42 million payroll, that's not good enough. And I really didn't find it difficult whatsoever in making some moves and making decisions to retool this team. When you're battling for eighth and ninth place with a $42 million payroll, something's wrong, so you can call it whatever you want to call it. Yeah. We have cut payroll but in the long run, I think our team will benefit from it. We're going to be a better team three years from now because of it.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, obviously we have our work cut out for us. There's no question that when you move people, some of the guys, the caliber of players that we moved, that makes it more difficult obviously to be competitive, but our goal hasn't always been to win a championship. Our goal is to stay in business. And as everyone knows, we lost $27 million last year. We just can't possibly keep going at that pace, at that rate. Fortunately, we built a new arena, we're getting a new arena built, and hopefully in 2003 when we move into that arena, we'll be all set.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, I really quite honestly think that this day belongs to these kids and their families. And if I tell you what I really think today, we're going to get a big controversy going, so let's wait until Monday and save this weekend for the kids. How's that? So I guess I gave you my answer, we're not getting anywhere.