Shortly after the new CBA was announced, Sean Burke was the goaltender we identified as we began formulating contingency plans for how we would proceed if Khabibulin left our team,

Shortly after the new CBA was announced, Sean Burke was the goaltender we identified as we began formulating contingency plans for how we would proceed if (Nikolai) Khabibulin left our team. We did a lot of homework on Sean, and we believe that not only will he come in and compete with John Grahame for the No. 1 spot, but if he doesn't win that contest he will be a 'team first' player.

I told him he never instructed me on how to handle any hurricane contingency plans.

We owe it to our own citizens to ensure that we have contingency plans, should such a reduction or interruption come to pass, ... But let me say that this would be an illogical act on the part of the government of Venezuela. Venezuela and the U.S. are natural partners in oil, for simple, common sense geographic reasons.

We've had some personnel changes there, and as much as anything, we're hoping we can get a spark. We need to start winning some games if we're going to make the playoffs there.

We did an awful lot of homework. We actually started doing the homework going back to when the CBA was announced -- recognizing that depending on what Nik decided to do that we might not have him here.