NHL ENTRY DRAFT

June 22, 2002

Mike Keenan

MIKE KEENAN: Basically, we had ourselves an opportunity to select the player that we wanted and that we would have picked first overall. Jay Bouwmeester would have been our No. 1 selection. Rick Dudley and our staff were able to put ourselves in a position where we felt perhaps in the future, we would have another opportunity, depending obviously how it all plays out next year, but we were willing to take that chance on two accounts; one, what we had to give up to get to that point; and the fact that we were going to be able to, as a result of the negotiations, still have Jay Bouwmeester. So Jay would have been, if we had stayed in the No. 1 position, the No. 1 pick overall.

MIKE KEENAN: He will be given a tremendous opportunity to make our hockey club. As you can see, he's well-developed physically. From the test results that were given to all of the players in this draft at the Combine, he excelled in the fitness requirement. He's a top-trained athlete. He's had three trips to represent Canada in the junior national program. We feel that based on our reports from our scouting staff had a he has a legitimate chance to play for the Panthers this season. He will be given an opportunity to stay in Florida. Obviously he did earn an opportunity, but he will be given an opportunity to stay.

MIKE KEENAN: Well, I don't know if it was that great a secret, because the thing didn't really unfold until the last minute. Within a half hour of our trading selection deadline, the deal was put together. I believe it was around 12:30. So there was not an awful lot of secrecy because of the time line. In fact, from the time I had walked from a position back here back to the table, we had the scenario unfold. So it took very little time. It was just a matter of an half hour or so that we sat on it.

MIKE KEENAN: I think it's a fair comparison because our scouting staff and other scouts around the League, central scouting have made those types of comparisons. And the fact that I was able to coach Chris at a very young age after we acquired him from Hartford and to have him come to St. Louis, I think that Jay has been recognized as being a little better skater than Chris. And Chris, also, has some attributes that people would think that Jay could acquire. So any time you get a player that's going to be as big as either Chris or Jay, it's a real advantage in the League today. I think that Jay will probably play out at about 230, maybe even 240, and, of course, that's the size of Chris. Chris may be a little bit taller, but not much. I think Jay probably has a chance to be 6-4. With those skating skills and that body frame you can log a lot of ice time. There's great hockey sense, which both of them have. The position they play can afford to you play them many, many minutes. Not when they are 19 years of age, but as you can see, Chris grew into it. Lidstrom plays 32 minutes a game; played more than anybody in the playoffs. That's the advantage of selecting a defenseman, as well. If you have a premiere defenseman, they are going to be able to play in the future, in their prime, 32 minutes a game, and that's a huge advantage because you're paying players today, whether they are a forward or a defenseman, these Top 3 players, and in this case. Nash and Bouwmeester are around the same level in terms of compensation. So you have to look at the ice time distribution, and not only that, go beyond that and see what your needs are as a hockey club and an organization.

MIKE KEENAN: Well, there's no substitution for hockey intelligence or hockey sense or hockey ability. I think he has all kinds of hockey sense and hockey intelligence. The best players, as you just described a couple of them, Lidstrom the best example recently who can play 32 minutes a game, a non-physical player in what we would describe a prototypical hard-nosed physical defenseman to look like, but obviously played against the best players that the opposition could give Detroit, and is physical enough in terms of his position and his size and strength. Bouwmeester will have those same attributes.

MIKE KEENAN: Well, I don't think we're going to have to make that decision. I think that he is at that level. As I said, he will be given every opportunity to make the hockey club. We will not do something that would be counterproductive to his development. If he's played in three world championships, and you look at his size and strength, as I said, well-tested in the fitness evaluation, and he's got another few months ahead of him here to report to training camp, I would suspect that he has a better chance of making the club than he does not.

MIKE KEENAN: Something we are looking at and certainly something we will address, it does not have to be addressed today, but it may be addressed next week or the following week when we see free agency. But at the same time, we would have picked Jay regardless, but it's helpful that he is a defenseman. We feel fortunate about that because of the absence of Bob Svehla.

MIKE KEENAN: It was not a factor in choosing him, but it was certainly something that Rick Dudley evaluated. He's had discussions, preliminary discussions, with all of the agents of all of the top picks. Jay's agent was one of them. So there was some preliminary discussions regarding a contract made quite some time ago, actually, in terms of trying to evaluate this draft. You don't want to put yourself in a position, either, where it's going to be a surprise or you're going to get numbers that are out of reach. So we made sure we did our homework in that regard, as well.

MIKE KEENAN: Well, it's a huge off-season for us. Not only because of Jay and the selection of Jay Bouwmeester today, but the fact that we have so many young players coming back that have had very little experience. If you look at the Detroit Red Wings, they won the Stanley Cup because they went after players that in their minds would remove the surprise element. In other words, they knew exactly what they were getting in the players that they hired. They paid a very high price for those players, but they didn't have development to worry about. We're in a situation where we have a lot of unknowns and it's a complete case of development, particularly at our forward position. That's part of what you do and have to do in the situation that we are in, both from a financial point of view, for most of the teams, at least in the neighborhood of the finances that we are dealing with, as opposed to the clubs that you look at that go after the top-ranked free-agent players, when they are now in the realm of somewhere between $55 and $75 million. They are going out to buy certainty and to take away the unknown. They know exactly what they get when they are signing the Robitailles and Haseks of the world and this year it will be the Holiks and Amontes; you know exactly what they are getting. They are proven professionals and they have the experience to go with it.

MIKE KEENAN: As I said, Rick was able to cover us off, and that was part of the agreement we made, both with Atlanta and Columbus.