Notes from Canes U Graduate session

Hey folks,

I know im newer here, but thought I would contribute just a bit. I was lucky enough to get to go to Hurricanes U graduate program for my birthday, and tonights speakers was Peter Karmanos. They were pretty adamant about asking questions so here are a few I did get to ask as well as PK's responses.

When asked about whether to keep or trade Joni he said "We were willing to listen to offers, but we had to weigh the value of the trade versus making the playoffs. We did get offers from 2 teams, (he hinted heavily that one was Boston) but in the end, neither deal made sense to us."

When asked about Brad Richards he commented "I dont think that makes sense to us, our biggest strength is down the middle with Staal, Sutter, and Skinner, but it says alot about the organization that a player of Richards caliber is interested in playing here, and we hope that will help us in the future landing potential UFA's."

On Oskar Osala's potential move to the KHL "Thats totally bogus. When I got an email about it I phoned both Oscar and his agent and neither knew anything about it. As a matter of fact Oscar was pretty upset about it."  When pressed about Osala's status as an upcoming RFA he simply stated that is something that will have to be dealt with in the off season.

When questioned about getting all 82 games on local TV he stated "That is a priority for us, and we are doing our best to make that happen."

Finally, I know this question was asked earlier on the boards about why the two trades were made with San Jose PK remarked "That was all the Central Registry(the guys who monitor the salary cap for the league.)  It was initially going to be on trade, but SJ needed to place a someone on IR to make the cap space work, so it ended up being 2 trades instead of one."

There were other topics discussed but these are the ones I thought were most relevant and be of most interest here. Feel free to post more questions and I will answer as best I can.