Quotes by John Muckler

“We want to put him in a position where he can be successful, ... He wasnt able to obtain that at this level. As we all know, he had a good training camp and it didnt carry over to the season.”

“This team has the most character Ive been associated with since Edmonton. Now they have to prove it. They came to camp believing that they can win the Cup.”

“He was the best player on the ice. Jason showed a lot of poise for a young guy to be put in a position like that. The pressure did not bother him one iota. He didnt feel a thing. He just looked at it as a great opportunity and thats how it turned out for him.”

“Its a severe suspension, five games. Marty is going to be a big loss to our hockey club, ... but having said that, theres no place in hockey for kicking. Im very sure that Marty is very sorry it happened. I dont think he intended to injure anybody.”

“We want to save cap money because we might have to do something down the line. We dont want to have people sitting around not playing and eating up cap money,”

“Thats a possibility. Im not going to say it will be that way for a month, but we might start the season that way,”

“We had to do it also because of the talent level of the player that we received,”

“We let a good hockey player go to Atlanta, ... But I just felt it was time for change. We had two runs at the Stanley Cup, one was partially successful, last season we failed. Theres a reason when you fail and those reasons have to be looked and tried to be rectified and this is what were trying to do.”

“We think (Eaves) is a guy who has a good shot, ... Hes going to get a chance and well see how he performs through the exhibition games.”

“I dont know if Ive seen this kind of excitement in any hockey community since (Wayne) Gretzky went to Los Angeles ... especially in this size of a city,”