Hughes seizes opportunity in multi-piece trades

MONTREAL - General manager Kent Hughes addressed the media on Tuesday to discuss the trade that sent Jeff Petry to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Gustav Lindstrom and a conditional fourth-round pick.

Here are a few highlights from his press conference:

Please note that questions and answers have been modified for clarity and conciseness.

Kent Hughes on how the Montreal-Pittsburgh-San Jose trade unfolded:

Pittsburgh and San Jose had been in talks for a while, and as I was in the car bringing my oldest son to Columbus, Ohio, I took the time to speak to Kyle Dubas to see where he was at [in the trade talks.] At the time, I was under the impression that we were on Jeff Petry's no-trade list but during our conversation on other matters, I was informed that we weren't and that the trade with San Jose had to happen before Sunday morning, otherwise Kyle was going to explore other options […], so we continued talking Saturday night to see if there was a way to facilitate the trade for the other two teams while acquiring assets in return that were beneficial to us.

Hughes on trading Jeff Petry to his home state:

I'm a believer in general, whether it be players or people, that you do the right thing. I called Jeff [Petry on Sunday] and said, "Listen, I know you didn't go to bed expecting to hear from me this morning. I was probably one of the last people you expected." I know they, as a family, were uptight. They've got four young boys and they were about to start school in two weeks. I gave him my word and said, "Listen, we saw an opportunity here to facilitate the trade between Pittsburgh and San Jose and to help ourselves, but we're mindful that you've got a family and your own career, and Montreal is probably not the place you're expecting to play." I promised him that we would work expeditiously to get him moved and that we wouldn't drag this out to try to maximize every piece of value in the trade. I spoke with Jeff again and he was thankful. That doesn't mean we are going to do things that are against the organization's interest, but when we can work together to do what's best for ourselves and the players, we'll always do that. We hope over time, players take note and want to be a part of it.

Hughes on Gustav Lindstrom's qualities:

Our pro [scouts] like him. They feel like he's a really smart puck-moving defenseman and that he still has a lot of room to grow in his game. The number that they threw out was that he's about 70 per cent of what they believe his potential is, and he's young. He's 24 years of age [and] he was a high draft pick. He's a Swedish player and Detroit has had a lot of success in that country over the years drafting wise. We're hopeful that Gustav can come and add an element to our team, and we'll see where it takes us.

Hughes on acquiring a wealth of draft picks:

I believe that as we accumulate draft capital - and we've used it in the past - it probably gives us a little bit of a luxury to maybe slightly overpay to acquire a player that we want that can help us compete in the window that we believe we can do it in.

Hughes on providing players with a better chance to crack the lineup:

We were able to trade two contracts that we wanted to move in order to make room for younger players… for the likes of [Rafael] Harvey-Pinard and [Jesse] Ylonen's chances to crack the lineup, all while continuing to acquire draft capital that we could either use or trade, as we've done previously to acquire younger players that we feel will be part of our core group moving forward.