NHL ENTRY DRAFT

June 23, 2001

Craig Button

CRAIG BUTTON: Well, Rob is a good-sized player that skates well and for whatever reason we didn't think -- I don't think anybody felt that he was performing up to his level of play. I can't comment as to why, but we feel that he can get back to the level of a 50- to 60-point player that's a real good two-way player for our team and size and skating ability, and we think it takes a lot of the pressure off of our other centers, and, specifically Marc Savard.

CRAIG BUTTON: We felt for us to be a better team we had to upgrade our goaltending and Turek has won 65 games the last two years, and we feel it's a significant upgrade on our goaltending, and we felt if we continue to improve that area, that we weren't going to move ahead and as for the trade of Pavel Bure and Jason Wiemer we felt that Pavel for whatever reason wasn't comfortable with us and not pointing fingers. He's pointing them at us. We're pointing them at him. Gives him a fresh start. Gives us a fresh start and we feel that's important for our entire team.

CRAIG BUTTON: It wasn't on the table.

CRAIG BUTTON: No.

Craig, should this trade -- I mean obviously you're hoping to improve your hockey team on the ice but also generate some excitement of your hockey team in the City of Calgary.

CRAIG BUTTON: If you're trying to do the things to your team then the excitement will follow. So we feel confident that this is going to improve our team and help us be a better team and the excitement will be there.

CRAIG BUTTON: Well, I don't know. Scoring goals and creating offense is a team thing, and I don't think we're expecting Rob to come in here and be a Jaromir or do the things that those individual skilled players can do. We want Rob to become part of our team and we're not looking at disappointment. We're looking at optimism and we feel Rob is going to move forward and change is going to help him.

CRAIG BUTTON: Well, I think it's like any other clear-headed player. When your mind's cleared off and you're comfortable where you're playing, you should be able to play to your potential and Pavel Bure has scored 60 goals the last two years and he has skill and the fit here in Florida is probably good for him.

CRAIG BUTTON: I think every player, young players specially need an opportunity, and as we were filling areas of our team, we thought that those opportunities were going to come short for those players. That leads to frustration if you know every player wants to try to achieve his goals. So we felt that they were not going to get a real strong opportunity in our team next year and that this was best to try to allow them that opportunity.