09-16 Jarmo Kekalainen

0:00Hey, I arrived almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago. I just wrapped a video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch group and Nana's with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone. All at once? Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to D-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network. Okay, multitasker. I see you. Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. It's awesome. Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload. That's a sign you've got to get D-Mobile. So many reasons to join D-Mobile. Find yours at T-Mobile.com. Fastest based on analysis by Uclosepetextintelligence data of National Speed Score results in incorporating 5G download to upload speeds for the first half of 2026.

1:05Your line just went down. Production stopped. A supervisor wants answers, and someone's digging through a binder for the maintenance history. Every one of those minutes costs money, and most of the time, that breakdown could have been prevented. That's where maintain X comes in. Maintain X catches the failure before it happens. Preventative maintenance plans on every key asset to improve reliability. Work orders assigned and tracked right from your phone. Everyone from the floor to the front office is in the loop. Companies on Maintain X have cut unplanned downtime by over 30% and save thousands on parts and labor every year. See what Maintain X can do for your operation. Try Maintain X free at MaintainX.com and auto-disk company. Hi, I'm Mike Sullivan, LA Carguide. You know that LAcarguide.com is the fastest way

2:05to view our entire inventory in one place, but we've made shopping online even better with our new LA Carguide Express Store. Find the perfect car with the options you want, or even shop by payment. Then use the LA Carguide Express Store to appraise your trade-in and finalize your deal online. Save time on your next vehicle purchase at any of our dealerships by starting your deal online at lacarguide.com. During your first full camp, you guys came in last year just trying to see if you could get a footing in this leak. What's the light coming into this camp? Off 109 point C's under all the expectations you have and everyone around town has now. Let's get back to work right away. First day one, it's a shorter camp than it has been before. So I think it's even more important that we get right at it, understanding that last season was last season. It's in the past by no means were satisfied, even though a lot of people are patting us

3:06on the back saying that you had a great season. Pretty good, I said to the team, pretty good, it's not good enough. So we want to improve this whole new opportunity again. We're four months away from just being ready to prepare for game seven and feeling good. And then we also remember very freshly how disappointing it was to lose it. And even if we won that game, we're only half way from where we want to be. So we got to understand that. We want to play for two months after the regular season. First, you got to get there. So it starts from game one. And we don't want to rely on putting it together or streak like we did last year. That's hard to repeat. So let's start game one. Be consistent, be better than we were last year. Because it's going to be real competitive in the Atlantic division. It's going to be real competitive in the Eastern Conference. So we better be ready. How does the shorter camp affect your preparations as a team?

4:11Well, you get probably less opportunity for guys that want it to come to camp and show that they can make the team. I think that we have a pretty good idea of who should be on the 23-man roster. Obviously that can change. First, they can change things. Second, exhibition games can change things. But there's a lot less opportunity to show in a real game situation that if they wanted that opportunity to try to make the team, it's a shorter, smaller window to show us. That's, I think, that changes things. And since the coaching staff has a little bit less of an opportunity to work on systems and stuff, we sort of have to get right at it, rather than having two, three different groups and work on this stuff first. And then once we get closer to the regular season, now we can work on the systems and narrow it down with our roster. I think we have to get right at it right away. Because it's two weeks away from being

5:13in the first game of the regular season. Yerba, you've had an off season to work on the roster, craft this new team. Then think about the goal that you want to do for this season. But what does this team need to do to continue its success this year, be a playoff contender and continue that consistency? I think the same is what we did last year. It's not just the other talent and the skill that's going to get us there. We need to compete. We can never be outworked. That's one of the things that is unacceptable. No matter how much talent or skill you have, you can't get outworked. So I think that once we started getting some success and understanding that that's how you get there, I think there was more buy-in within the team that this is the recipe. We compete. We were relentless. Or we never give up. No matter what the lead, the other team might have. And never say die. So I think that paid off. And that's how we started putting together the winning streak. And they saw that it worked.

6:14I think they should be still thinking that the same recipe will work. And I think it's time to season all of the summer questions that revolved around Conor Hellibut. Every time his name is mentioned in the Manning and Trade, the Sabers are mentioned. What can you say about that? And can the serve as a distraction? I really don't know. To be honest with you, I have never told anybody in the media about any of the talks with other general managers. So I don't know where it comes from. But that's the world we live in. There's going to be rumors. And you can't let it affect you. And there's going to be individual players from our team that are going to be in the rumors. Some may be where I've never even mentioned their name to the other teams. And that's the world we live in. So you just got to understand. Sometimes I have conversations with the players. If it's a young player in particular, whose name is in the trade rumors, I say, listen, I've never mentioned your name to the other team.

7:15But then again, Wayne Greski got traded. So someday you might get traded. But if you start reacting to all the rumors, I think that's all I could do all day if that was the case. And I've been told about the rumors. I've seen some of the rumors. I'll just say my same boring asser where anytime we have an opportunity to try to make our team better, we're going to look at it and make phone calls and consider it and have internal meetings about it and see if it goes anywhere. If not, then we'll continue. And if we can make a trade to make our team better, we will. So that doesn't say the rumors are all a bunk, not true though. I'm commenting one way or the other. How do you deal with in this particular situation with such a prominent name being out there? And your team, such a prominent team being mentioned. How do you deal with your three goalies wondering from day to day, if Conor Ella bucks walking in the door?

8:15Well, I just deal with them internally where we've said all along whether it's in our internal conversations or conversations than anybody else we thought our goal training was really good last year. We thought we had three really good goalies, all-performed career and career numbers. It gave us a lot of wins. I thought they played great. Can they be better? Absolutely. Everybody on our team can be better. And that should be a goal of any ambitious professional hockey players to get better every day. And the day they think they can't any more, they should just retire and go enjoy life. I honestly think so. But yeah, it's part of being a professional understanding that there's always going to be rumors. And that's life in the NHL. Are you comfortable carrying three goalies again on the roster? Linnie mentioned at the end of the season. Has that something you're comfortable with using three rosters back to you? Right now we are here. We could change at some point.

9:16If somebody takes off and starts taking the net for like a number one goalie where he's playing grade and getting 60 games, the other two guys are not getting enough games. And does take a roster spot. So we have to think of all the different things that it affects with our plans. But right now it worked great last year. We talked to all of them individually without having them in the same room. And they all said that they worked great. They pushed each other. They loved working together. And so there was no distractions. No, nobody felt like it was not a good situation. So right now we're going to go with it. And at some point it could change. You're able to get no sign before yesterday's deadline. How long was that in the works? And how important was it to get that eight-year? We always talk about these things. Whether we get a guy sign or a will sign or not,

10:16we always project as far as seven, eight years ahead of where we think our guys are going to go with their hockey career. And therefore what they're going to get paid. And what that's going to look like with the cap and all that. So we feel that he's going to be one of the court pieces moving forward with our team getting better and better. You've all seen what's happened with some of the salaries in the league this off season. So I think that that was part of the reason why we wanted some costs certainly to know that we're heading how we're building, how we're moving forward with the cap situation and all. But even though it could seem like a short window to see what he's done in the NHL, he was a first-round pick for a reason. And his biggest strength is here. His hockey sense is incredible. Like, great for us last year, even though it wasn't that many games,

11:19we really, really believe in him. And we think he's only going to get better. So just like with Josh Dohn and Zach Benson, we wanted to get ahead of it so that we have these guys locked up in our core. And we have costs certainly known where their contract's going to be at for many, many years. How do you feel about how he'll show it off? I know you were hoping to see some physical development from some of the other teams that I had to feel about how he reported. Good. I actually went to see him in Stockholm. I watched him work out in the gym for hour and a half. And talked to him about it. And he's done a good job this summer. He's put on some weight in the form of muscle, which is good, which is what we want it. And it's only going to help him. And I've seen a lot of players with the type of body that he has, the type of hockey sense he has, and how they change with the work they put in. And their body's changed.

12:20And all of a sudden, they're men. And strong in addition to their ability to read the game and the instincts they have. So I'm excited about the potential of the ES. I agree. Sorry. You lose by bringing Zell Wigger and Crevier. You lose touch. And you're clearly going for more internal progression, having Hellenius for a full year. What was the balance in going outside to potentially replace such versus saying we're going with our guys? Well, there's a few things, obviously. Now, our cap situation is pretty good. We have flexibility to do whatever we can react to it. And early in the season, mid-season, deadline. And it's only going to get bigger in the room that we have there under the cap. We do believe in the progression of our young guys. Absolutely 100%. I remember when Noah went in the middle for the first time in that plane center. And we were a little bit nervous.

13:21And then he just took off and played great. And then we brought him, Consta Hadenius, and the playoffs. And he was a little nervous. He's playing center. He's never played in the playoffs in the NHL. First year, he had played nine games. They're regular season on the wing. We put him in center. And he just took off and played great. So again, small window or sample size. But I think that that's our job to project to. And they have good pedigree with their being first round pick. So as an organization, we've watched them a long time and evaluated them for a long time. So the free agent market is, first of all, it wasn't too many players. They're available if you wanted to try to replace somebody just from the free agent market. And they can get a little crazy with the prices. I've always said that July 1st is the worst day of the year.

14:23You'd make decisions. You would regret for many, many years if you go there and try to replace players from free agent market or billion team through a free agent market. So with the talent that we have internally, I think we need to believe in them. The work we put in to develop them, grow with them. And now they're ready. We have to have that opportunity for them. And when you only have a 23-man roster and you have four lines and 60-fence that can play, you all can do the numbers where you had, even now we're a bit crowded. Suckers hurt and he won't be ready for their start of the regular season. But if he was healthy, we'd have some really tough decisions to make on who's going to be on the 23-man roster. And you guys who are physically not ready for take-down? Well, Louis Crevier had an operation. He looks like he's ready. I think he still needs to talk to the doctor that operated on him. But we think he'll be ready for the regular season.

15:24We still don't have the final answer on it. But everybody else is healthy and ready to go. Get your zonkers injury. Sucker had one of those sports hernia things. When did he have surgery? Is there a timeline, I guess? He's going to be in a unit that can never say exactly what it is. But he's very close to the start of the year. But he could miss maybe a couple of weeks of the regular season. Was that left over from the playoffs? I didn't have to talk to him about that. I can't really even, I shouldn't even talk about any of the medical information that's against the law. What's going on with Crevier? He had a shoulder surgery, so he's coming back from that. Have you feel about the way Yuri Kuik worked over the summer? And how he looks now, like how ready he's going to be to come back to him? Well, I'm anxious to see it.

16:25I'm starting tomorrow. I mean, he looks great. And everybody's talking about how good he was when he was healthy and how he didn't look like himself last year, which is what I've seen up close. He was last year in a pretty good explanation. Now that you look back at what he went through, that he wasn't himself. But I'm really excited to see him healthy and what he can do. And obviously he's missed the year, so we've got to cut out pay-be-patient and let him get back into the, get the feel and the pace and all that back. Physically, he's in great shape. So it's not going to be for that, but to get back into feeling the game at the pace that it's played these days, it usually takes a little while. You know, when you talk about how you use the ability to make the stack up for the health-eater Toronto and the maiden movements, Montreal, how do you think this division stack up the way it is now

17:25and how it typically, and just how tough it will be to get more of those spots? Well, I think it's the toughest division to make the playoffs in the NHL. But again, you know, there's eight teams that make it out of the Eastern Conference. And whether it's a divisional spot or wildcard doesn't really matter, in my opinion. You saw how much the home, home advantage meant last spring in the first two rounds that we played. It didn't matter at all, because we played much better on the road. So it's going to be tough to make the playoffs. There's 32 teams, only 16 make it. It's tough every year. And it's going to be real tough this year too, and that's what we got to understand from day one that doesn't matter that we were division champs last year at it. It's nothing to do, that's done, it's over with. Now everybody wants our head, because we did well last year, and they know that we have a good team, so they're coming after us. We better be ready. In the case of some of these other guys in the past,

18:26we've signed long-term extensions, kind of far out for a long time, not making it to play. For you, what's the process of exciting? This is a guy I want to sign long-term between saying, let's play this short, and see what they're doing. Well, it's when you really believe in a guy, and you think he's going to pop as we call it, then you try to get ahead of it. If you have some questions about certain areas that are really important for guys to have as their qualities, if they want to have a long and successful career, and you probably wait a little and see if he's going to grow in these areas so that he can have a real good career, is this just a... Do we have to wait a little bit in peace, I think? But that's our job. That's what we do every day, is we project, we evaluate, and then make decisions based on that, and what we need to do with our roster, with our team, with our prospects, move it forward, and that's what it's all about.

19:30A little bit of a housekeeping question. What are the teams plans for its ECHL affiliate, or sharing the ECHL as well? Ah, that's a question for another day. I think this is... We were just concentrating on the start of the NHL season, and obviously, you know, it's important to have a place for everybody to play, but we will, there's no worries about that. I think a lot has changed since your old plumbers, but we had structurally salary-capwise, the NHL wise, but how is your philosophy changed for a faculty from your pays and from this one comes to signing these contracts, and I think going into the goals that you've had in the past six and eight years? I don't think it has changed that much at all. I think that when, once you recognize and feel as a management, we feel that this guy can be a core piece of a Stanley Cup winning team. You lock him up. And again, if you feel like there's some work to be done before,

20:33he can be a core piece, then maybe you wait a little bit to see if he deserves a long-term contract. But I think that, again, the guys that we've locked up, we feel that Josh Donan's at Benson and Noah Oslander are all core pieces. You want to make sure that they are here to stay, and we can build around them. You've still have a lot of leaders left in that room. You've got guys and war letters. How much though are some of those contracts Donan, Benson, kind of a statement to them that they should strive and endeavor to be part of that leadership group, or maybe they were laying back a little in the previous years, and now they can step in this line. Yeah, I don't think it should be a money question either. I think it probably gives them a little bit more confidence. But I think they're performers on the ice, the standard they set for themselves every day on how they come to work and how they work. I think that's the biggest statement in the locker room that you can make,

21:33and then you get a little bit more of a voice. But absolutely, I think that's part of the process that those young players need to grow as leaders as well. And at some point, take over. I think that's the natural progress of a good team, is that you have good leaders. They help grow other good leaders who eventually will take over and be great leaders. And the cycle continues. On the same topic, how have you seen Grasmas develop that leadership role for your dream here? And now that he's personally, what's he been showing up to this year, is developing that way? I think he's the ultimate professional, the way he prepares for NHL season. I went to see him this summer as well. I think it's extraordinary.

22:33He's a very dedicated professional, and thinks of every aspect of his development when he prepares for the season, and that's why he's one of the best. And obviously very skilled and talented, but I think that as a leader, he can grow, just like he can grow on the physical side of his development or skill side of his development. I think that anything that involves our profession, we can always get better at. And I think that the leadership is the same way. It's not that anybody's born as a great leader. You have to learn to be a good leader, and you can learn to be a better leader every day and every year. Did you mention you visited Noah too? Is it something you know what to do or is it something you felt you needed to do? Or this fight you do with? No, I think I like to do that. Yeah, I like to try to stay in touch with the players during the off season to kind of make them understand that we're interested in what they're doing.

23:33Because we were off for four months and now we're hopefully in it for nine months. But that's a long time. So we need to have our development staff in touch with them. We had Brian Galavan, our strength and condition ahead of head of the performance. He went to see all those guys we coordinated so that he went to see Yuri Kulik and Mertka in check. Jack Win was visiting Rasmus Dalyna, his hockey school in Gothenburg. So he saw him on the same trip, went to spend some time with Kuntzda Hellenius and Finland, so forth. And we had Jake, go to Priskalambia to see Zach Benson work out this summer. So we're all trying to make sure that the players know that we're very, very interested and hands on with their development. What did you see happen to Zach down the stretch last year into the playoffs that allowed him to take a big league in those two months or so there?

24:34Well, I think one of the things that he really bought on the last season during the season was the strength and conditioning part of it. And he's a young player. I think he can make huge gains in that area. He's such a talented player. We always talk about having the instincts and the hockey sense for the game and the heart to compete and he has all those. But once he gets stronger, so only these he can only utilize these better than he did before. And I think the credit to our performance staff led by Ryan Gallivan, that they got him to buy in. And I think once you see him this training camp, you'll see the difference again from the end of last season to the beginning of this one, that how a 2021-year-old player can take these leaps when they really get dedicated and committed to strength and conditioning and being ready to become a better player. I think you'll really see the difference just with your eye. We saw Tage Thompson play center and Wayne Classies and I'm curious when you watched him.

25:37If you had a preference or what differences maybe you noticed when he was at those different spots? I always leave those to the coaching staff. Sometimes we have conversations or regularly have conversations and I'll let the coaching staff know what I think of certain players play, whether it's a positionally or just an individual game or where it's going and trending and all those things. But I'll leave that to Linda to decide where Tage needs to play. I think that he had a lot of success and team had a lot of success when we moved him to the center. He's obviously a play driver that can really drive our offense. But it's also demanding job playing center and he's a big man. So it takes a lot more energy to play a centerman with the minutes that he gets every game because he is a 40-goal score. So he's going to be on the ice a lot and playing center going from one end to play down low in the other end as a center takes a lot more energy than playing wing.

26:41So those are some of the things that factor in whether they're going to the coaching staff decides whether they want to play center or wing. James, I ask you about John David Simp just obviously we're closely with him to throw your career. Why did you bring him in? He's been in the NHL for 50 years so he's got a ton of experience. He knows everybody, knows him, big personality. I think you'll all, if you get an opportunity to talk to him, he's got some great stories from 50 years and he's seen the ups and downs. And it's just a great hockey man that loves to be around the game and being involved. He brings a lot of experience and he's got a great eye for the game and especially he was a goal tender and went to the Stanley Cup finals with the Rangers as a player and was a first-round pick. He's gone through all those different experiences in hockey life and I always enjoyed working with him so I look forward to him being part of the staff.

27:47You're entering your first full season now in Sabers General Manager. What's biggest challenge that's in front of you to lead this team and this organization? I think we just talked about it for quite a while here. We can't be complacencies the biggest pitfall right now for our team thinking that we were pretty good last year. It's not good enough. Last season was last season and now we move forward and if we for one second think that we can exhale now that we know there's no more streak, bad streak that we didn't make the playoffs hanging over our heads, that's not good. We need to focus on doing the right things right from day one. Is there any part of you that wants them to embrace the feelings, both good and bad of last season and carry that over into this one? I think you always have to evaluate and then you use that to your advantage and then you move forward.

28:47I think that there's a lot of good things from last year that should be part of our plan right now and part of our daily standard and routine every day. There should be also a quick reminder of some of the bad habits that we had that let to know success. I think that's what the coaching staff is doing right now and they're going to get everybody ready to understand what the winning recipe is. Again, it has to start right now and nobody can think that we could somehow exhale because we made the playoffs last year and we're division champs and everybody patting us on the back saying we're great. That's all done now. Let's move forward. It's going to be hotter. Everybody's going to be coming at us. Now, there's some work that's going to be done for a couple of things and a couple of practices here. Where do you think that happens? The development, we've put a little bit of Rochester last year and now I'm just going to get a chance to really go down there. What are you looking for on them and what did you see here? Where is he at now? Sorry, I didn't hear who you said.

29:47He's a defense when I always say he's the hardest position to play for a young player to try to make to the NHL. We're starting day one today. Let's see how he does with the NHL camp. Evaluate him every day and we already did a couple of see-couple games in the rookie games and now we just keep evaluating and we want to make sure it's our job to put him in a place where he can succeed. And move forward with his career into the right direction. Before to saying how he can handle the NHL, I think it's such a young age. Yeah, I mean, he should be ready to handle that. We saw a little bit of that at the end of last year but again, we're going to keep evaluating and make sure that he's put in the right situation so that he has a chance to succeed. Hey, our ride's almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago.

30:47I just wrapped a video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch group and Nana's with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone. All at once? Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to D-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network. Okay, multi-tasker. I see you. Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. It's awesome. Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload. That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile. So many reasons to join T-Mobile. Find yours at T-Mobile.com. Fastest based on analysis by Uglos Speed Test Intelligence, the data of national speed score results in incorporating 5G download and upload speeds for the first half of 2026. When equipment breaks down and operations come to a halt, every single second counts.

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