Don Waddell's NHL Draft Media Availability

MONTREAL -Less than an hour prior to the start of Thursday's Round One of the NHL Draft, Carolina Hurricanes General Manager Don Waddell spoke to reporters inside the Bell Centre.
Over the span of approximately ten minutes Waddell covered a variety of topics, including the draft itself, pending free agents and more...

On trading back into the first round...
"Not a priority. We made our deal, trading our first pick before the year. To get back in the first round, you have to give up a lot. So I didn't think it was worth it at this point."
On the pending restricted free agents (Bear, DeAngelo, Lorentz, Necas...)
"We are an interesting league because from both a team standpoint and from an agent standpoint, nothing seems to happen until a deadline. Right now negotiations just go on and on. Once you come to a deadline, that's usually when the deals are made."
On the pending unrestricted free agents (Niederreiter, Trocheck and more...)
"I think they're all going to go to the open market and see what happens. The players have that right. They've earned that right as UFAs."
Does it mean that if Niederreiter and Trocheck sign elsewhere, the team will also be active on the market?
"We're going to spend our money one way or another. We're not trying to be a budget team, we're a cap team. We'll spend it wisely, of course, but we want to be in the mix to help strengthen our team."
On if there is a change in mindset in the team's approach and if that puts any more urgency in this weekend...
"You're always worried about giving a 29 or 30-year-old player and having to sign them because all those guys want six, seven years. It doesn't fit into our thinking of how to run the team. It doesn't mean they're bad players, but at some point you're going to be paid for something that they're not. So we've been very careful about that. And we'll continue to you know, keep that in mind as we try to move forward here."
Would the Canes prefer to get something done in a trade, moving the rights to Niederreiter or Trocheck if they're not going to sign?
"We're wide open. The problem is that we like our team and we like our players. We know we're going to have some changeover, but we did finish with 116 points last year. So we have to be careful not to tinker with it too much."
On if there have been any updates on talks with restricted free agent Martin Necas...
"We haven't talked recently. We'll issue him a qualifying offer] and go from there. It'll get done at some point. It's not an urgency to get him done like the other guys."
***Is the team committed to keeping Martin Necas?***
"Absolutely."
***Do you have any concerns about the team's Russian players making their way back to North America?***
"I have concerns about everyone. As far as Andrei, we're being told as of today that we don't have any issues. It's kind of out of our control at this point. We're encouraging them to get back as soon as they can, but they have a better feel of things than we do."
***Any updates on Jake Gardiner?***
"He's cleared to play. Barring anything unforeseen, he'll come to camp and we'll go from there."
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