On the acquisitions of Gostisbehere and Puljujarvi being the only moves made for the team...
"We talked about our needs going into the deadline and the one thing we talked about was the power play. Hopefully, we've addressed that in adding some depth. Making a trade just for the sake of making a trade is not what we do here. We're also not going to spend a big price on rental players. My coach really likes the players we have."
Why the team took the route it did at the deadline...
"I met with some of the leaders on our team before they left town. We have something good with this bunch of guys, led by Rod. They believe in each other. This group is very close. There was concern that we maybe had to lose someone off of our roster."
Providing perspective on some other teams being willing to move their first-round picks and more...
"Our philosophy is that we're not going to pay a ransom price for a short-term result that may not be there. There's a lot of good teams that aren't going to win a playoff round this year."
On some of the other teams in the league making big splashes...
"If you look back at the history of the trade deadline and how many guys have been traded, how many teams win a Stanley Cup? Every year there are 30 guys traded or so, and if I still remember right, only one team is going to win the Cup. There's going to be a lot of disappointed teams."
Touching on the importance of holding onto first round draft picks because of rosters needing entry-level contract players...
"Almost every conversation [with a selling team] started with first round picks. In some of the bigger cases, they wanted young players off of our team, which we just weren't going to do. You see the first round picks, it's currency. In a salary cap world, your best players, to keep them it's going to cost you significant cap. You're going to need entry-level contract players coming into your organization... It's not like the old days where you can have 20 veteran players and you can just pay them whatever amount of money. You want to make sure you have enough money to take care of your stars, and then you have to fill the rest with good players coming along."
What Puljujarvi brings to the group...
"He's a big guy. We wanted to get bigger along the wall and he skates really well... We think he's got more in his tank than how things have gone for him."
