Sharks GM Kurt Fulmore took time from his birthday to hold a press conference concerning his Sharks team and what went on with team recently:
"Hello all, thanks for attending. I've called this press conference for a couple reasons. One, just to thanks our great fans for sticking the club despite the less than stellar season we have had this year. We have rewarded our fan base by dropping our ticket prices. This is a thank you for their loyalty. I also have called this press conference to shed some light on our future and our most recent transactions leading up to the deadline.
The future of this team is looking bright. Jeff Skinner, Kyle Okposo are doing good on the front lines for the team. Kari Lehtonen is a star in net. He is doing awesome even though we aren't doing the best this season. Patrick Marleau has stepped up as a true leader and point producer for this team. Petiot and Big Buff are shoring up our blueline. Guys like Chris Thorburn, Marc Andre Pouliot know their roles and are doing their best to do those roles. We have #1 overall draft pick from 2011, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins extremely ready to make the jump into the NsHL next year. We also have Zach Bogosian and Justin Braun, ready to make an impact at the NsHL or AsHL level. Jordan Eberle is going to be a beast in the NsHL next year. We look for him to make some noise next season for us. We have Mikael Granlund in our system who is playing very well over in Europe and should be in the NsHL in a couple of years. The bright side to such a harsh season is adding another good piece to the puzzle via the draft. As it stands right now, we have 2nd overall in the 2012 draft. Things can change between now and than and there is also the draft lottery. We know as good as anyone that can land you first overall as that happened to us last year. So we are looking forward to this summer and next season.
We had one deal on deadline day and had some others leading up to it. We dealt veteran dman Mike Commodore to Toronto's 5th in 2014. We had elected to not resign Mike so he would have been going UFA after this season. So getting a piece for an upcoming UFA, sounds good to me. We moved Daniel Alfredsson to Nashville for JP Dumont and Nashville's 2nd in 2012. We picked up Daniel from Toronto help us make a run for the playoffs, things didn't work out so we moved him somewhere where he has a better shot at the playoffs. We akso sent Sami Salo to the Preds in a seperate deal for their 3rd in 2013. Salo wasn't producing as we had hoped so a new home might be the trick for him. We moved Nik Antropov to Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh's 2nd and 4th in 2012 and their 2nd in 2013. Same thing with him as with Alfredsson. Things didn't work out and he got sent to a team that's one of the top teams in the East right now.
We were happy with these deals and got back basically what we gave up for these players.
We would like to thanks everyone for taking the time to come out. It's time for me to get back to enjoying my birthday. I've got a 6 pack of Corona with my name on it. Thanks, everyone."
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