Tim Leiweke took time this afternoon to share his thoughts on the Kings’ meeting with Brad Richards…

Question: How did the meeting go, and could you just speak to the importance you put on this, with such a big showing in Toronto?

LEIWEKE: “This was a high priority for the Kings and a high priority for AEG and ownership. We spent a lot of time on it in the last few weeks. The staff, Dean and his team, and Mike Alteri, did a phenomenal job on the presentation. We were well-prepared. We were well-organized. We were well-briefed. He was shocked as to how much we knew about him. I thought Terry Murray and his team did a great job of making him understand where our team is at today and where he would fit in. We were with this young man for over two hours, and longer with the agents. I was impressed that they gave us as much time as they did. I’m very impressed by this guy. He has a lot of choices, probably offers that are going to be better than ours, but I definitely think we have him thinking.”

Question: Did you get any type of timetable from Brad or the agents?

LEIWEKE: “No, but just seeing the way they’re going about this, this is not Kovalchuk. He is a very smart kid, with some very smart agents. They are well-organized and their thoughts are together. My guess is this is not going to take long, for them to make a decision. They’re not leveraging anyone. I admire the way they’ve done it. I am appreciative of the amount of time they allowed us to have.”

Question: Can you talk a little about this presentation? Is it the most significant you’ve made, as a team, for a free agent?

LEIWEKE: “This is the best effort I’ve ever seen, in chasing a player for the Kings. That’s for sure. They were very impressed with the video, and I’m hoping one day we will share the video. We had a lot of people help us and a lot of people speak on our behalf. Some of the people who spoke on our behalf shocked Brad and his agents, and they will shock our fans a little bit, the help that we got here. So this was a good L.A. effort. L.A. showed well here, and I’m proud of the job we did. We’ll see what happens, but certainly, regardless of what happens, it’s nice to be held in this regard now. We’re one of the big boys, and that’s certainly how they looked at it today.”