"That's massive. I came here two years ago, and you (Bob Stauffer) said to me on the first day after all the interviews that there was more in the system than a lot of people thought; getting Puljujarvi back, Yamamoto, McLeod, and now you see what (Stuart) Skinner has done. (Markus) Niemelainen had a nice year last year, but he got hurt and did play in Bakersfield. He's been off to a good start this year. Part of being a good team in the cap, obviously it's cap management and free-agent signings, but you've got to draft and develop. You have to have homegrown because they're cheap for a while and you hope they grow into being expensive. That's what you hope when you draft these players."
"I'm looking at going into the 26th and 27th, and for left-shot defencemen, obviously Keith is out on protocol. Darnell Nurse is out on protocol. Lagesson is going to be out on protocol. I don't think Niemelainen is going to be available, he's got a bit of a broken hand, and Kris Russell is on LTIR until I think January 3rd. We've got Slater Koekkoek, and we were going over this yesterday, but certainly we're going to have to call up (Dmitri) Samorukov and (Philip) Broberg. We're talking about them right now, so the depth of the organization has allowed us to be 18-11 and have a hand in the race because we've lost a lot of key people. Other teams have lost a lot of key people, and I think that's the key - you've got to have other players step in and fill the void for you while you continue to play games."
"Skinner's been a great story for us in net. He and Mikko (Koskinen) have given us great goaltending, and when one's kind of fallen off the other's stepped in and done a good job. We've got a good tandem out of those two guys, and certainly, we're excited to get Smith back because of his leadership and ability to handle the puck. He's got some swagger. He was a big part of our team last year in the 56-game all-Canada division, so we want to make sure when Smitty comes back that he can hit the ground running. That's why I'm not sure if he'll be available right off the bat, but certainly we want him to have a few good practices. He was really close last week, and we need him to hit the ground running. You've got to have good goaltending, and we had it last year. So far this year, our goaltenders have pitched in big time to help us be 18-11."