Bolts' Yzerman: You have to plan long term

With less than a month under his belt on his new job, Steve Yzerman continues to get his feet wet as Lightning general manager.

The rookie GM hired his coach, naming 38-year-old Guy Boucher to the position last week, taking care of perhaps the most important - at least from a public standpoint - hire in the organization.

But the job has literally just begun for Yzerman, who heads to his first draft next week, will handle his first free agency period shortly after that on July 1 and will look to bring in an assistant general manager to help him with contracts and salary cap situations. All of this as Yzerman has barely had time to learn his way around the St. Pete Times Forum to familiarize himself with the building, let alone find someplace for he and his family to settle in the Tampa area.

With all that in mind, Yzerman sat down Wednesday to address some of the items at the top of a long laundry list of things to work through before training camp starts in September.

Do you have a good feel at this point for the organizational depth chart?

I don't think we are very deep at the NHL level, the AHL level and as far as prospects go. We will slowly add to that.

How much will you be involved in the draft in terms of selections next week?

I'm relying on (the scouting staff) 100 percent, and it's going to be my thinking going forward, I believe that if you are going to have input in the draft, you have to have lived it. Certainly at the end of the day I can make a determination, but you really have to hire people to do it and they live it. They are at all the games watching. For me to be involved and say that I've seen this guy play once, I like him so we're taking him, that would be a fatal mistake.

Any chance you use the No. 6 overall pick as a trade chip?

I won't say no, and we don't have anything in the works right now. We've talked about the possibilities. I want to keep as many picks as possible. I think we just need to build up depth in our prospects, we need young players coming, so very remote that we move it.

How active should we expect you to be on July 1 when free agency begins?

As much as I would love to have a splash on July 1, I don't want to sign a player just so we can have a press conference, it has to make sense. That's the discipline we have to have. And frankly we've got some things within our own club that we have to take care of, like contracts and other things moving forward that we really need to focus in on and then slowly build around that.

Do you have a certain budget to work with in terms of player payroll?

I have a general idea, and we'll tighten that up next week and be ready for July 1.

Marty St. Louis is entering the final year of his contract - what are the chances he is signed to an extension?

There are a lot of reasons other than his production that I would like to keep him in the organization and keep him on the team. But he's at a stage in his career, he's turning 35, he wants win, and he wants to negotiate a contract that he feels good about. I respect all of that, and it makes perfect sense. And I believe that in every contract negotiation you've got to find a solution that makes sense to both sides. I'm hopeful that we can do that. He's a first-class guy, he deserves to be treated with utmost respect and I'll do that. Where it ends up, we'll see. They want to make a deal that makes sense for them and I have to make a deal that makes sense for us. So we have some time to get it done, but it's a definite priority for me.

With Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman likely needing long-term contracts in the next year or two, will you have to move any of the other current long-term deals to make it happen?

You have to plan long term, there is no way around that. So you have to look at what your commitments are and it can definitely impact what we do. We don't have to deal with it today. Every issue and every situation is going to take some time. We'll sign our players we need to sign now, plan accordingly with what we have and then just keep working through the process. But every long-term deal we do I have to keep in mind our commitments and what's coming up in the future.