Bob Clarke Felt Quotations

Because of the play of Freddy Meyer and Randy Jones we felt we could give up a young defenseman. Not that we wanted to, but our theory was that we needed some more scoring ability and more skill up front.

He'll move up in the middle (of the ice) and hit people. Like Kasparaitis, he'll go after the better players on other teams. I think that was one area where we felt we had to get better, especially with the injuries we have on defense.

We felt Gauthier is a really good fit. He's a physical player. He'll move up the middle and he'll hit people. That was an area we felt we had to get better, especially with the injuries on defense.

We felt that with all the injuries we have had that Matt would bring more versatility to our lineup. He can play center and wing. We always felt that Patrick was a better center. We have lots of centers, even though we have some injuries right now. We just felt that Matt was a better fit for our team, although we realize that we gave up a good young player.

We felt that he has been a really good goal scorer in the National Hockey League, has good speed and is a skilled hockey player. Losing Kapanen for at least two months leaves us shallow at forward, so we thought that getting a player like Savage would really help our team.

After the season, we lost (Vladimir) Malakhov, (Marcus) Ragnarsson and (Mattias) Timander. They are three big defensemen. We felt we had to replace them, get better and we did.