



I didn’t know until I sat down yesterday. The Rangers were right beside us. I asked [Glen Sather] what he was doing, and he mentioned that name. My ears perked up a little bit. We could use that speed and tenacity, and the way he plays. We worked on it a little yesterday, and we managed to get it done today.He has arbitration rights, so he’s going to get signed one way or the other. We’ll try to get something done before that because of arbitration rights. We looked at that before we did it.That’s up to Bruce [Boudreau], but I think he’s capable of playing everywhere, and he has. He can play both sides. He’s a really good hockey player.You make a deal and everyone assumes one of the two [goaltenders] is going. Maybe everybody should look back at last year and what went on, the [complications] that were created with the injuries to these two guys. The ways we tried to fix them didn’t work. This way, we’re covered right now. I have no idea how it’s going to play out to start, but I know I have my backend covered now.I still think there is maybe something in free agency. Nate Thompson’s injury is a bad one, so we may have to look at something along those lines. I’m not sure exactly what, but there are some things out there. I don’t know where we’re going to go with that. I don’t think we’re finished, but I’m not going rush right into free agency. I’ll kind of wait and see what happens.The Hagelin deal sort of popped up and solved one problem we were trying to look at fixing. We may have gotten a little bit lucky on that one. As for moving Kyle [Palmieri] and Emerson [Etem], we got ahead of the curve with all the young players. All of a sudden all of these contracts are going to come up, and you’re going to be in trouble. We addressed that. It’s no fault of their own, but we’re trying to stay ahead of certain situations when it comes to contracts and tagging.It helps me to sign the guys I have to sign. The first step, and I’ve said this from Day 1, the priority is getting some of our guys signed. That’s what we’re going to go after right now.He was coming along. He had some really good games, but in other games he stalled. A change will be really good for Emerson. He came a long way under us, but I think a change will be really good for him right now. I think he felt pressure at times. Now he can get away, go relax and play hockey.This is another really good skating, puck-moving Swedish defenseman. He’s a really good hockey player. Yes, we have a few Swedish defensemen, but you can never have enough defensemen. We’re accumulating a whole bunch of good, young defensemen. That’s always good.