Sportsnet: Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford when asked if they are done making big moves, if they’re just going to look at smaller tweaks before the March 8th NHL trade deadline, and what were their expectations heading into the season.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “I don’t think that you or Patrick are ever done but at this point we think we all wonder sort of in expectation for the Vancouver Canucks is high. Is it now about, more about tweaking the roster or still making, you know, big impactful trades?
Rutherford: “No, I think, I think we’ll just watch the team really close here until March 8th. And I would like to think it’s more about tweaking. You know, this, this is a big trade. It’s an impactful trade for the Canucks.
But I think we hope that we don’t have to do anything else but we’ll see what comes along and what the prices are the closer we get to the deadline.
Marek: “This is a team that’s been you know, you can make the argument the biggest story in the NHL on the ice this season. There were many that even wondered about what the Vancouver Canucks even, you know, get close to a wildcard spot. Given where your team is at right now, when you look back to the beginning of the season, what was the expectation or what were the expectations from you and Patrick?
Rutherford: “Well, we knew everything had to go right for us to have a chance to make the playoffs. And, and we knew that we have to make some changes.
I don’t know exactly how many trades we’ve made, but I know we’ve made the majority of them in the league since the start of the season. And, you know, we’re not the same team that people were talking about struggling to get into a wildcard spot. We’ve, we’ve improved our team dramatically with some of the changes or some of the needs that we had.
Like, like, number two goalie in (Casey) DeSmith, you know. I mean, he’s, he’s played a big part in that season. He’s been a good partner for (Thatcher) Demko. He’s played well in the games he’s played. So some of the role players that we’ve added and whatnot sort of fit in nicely. So we’ve, we’ve, we’ve changed the team quite a bit since the start of training camp.”