Here is a transcript of Stars GM Jim Nill talking on The Ticket about the trade for Kris Russell. Transcript provided by Steve Hunt of NHL.com

On when this trade started coming together

“It’s been a busy last three, four days. This trade deadline kind of started on probably Thursday and Friday. There was like some deals that started to take place. I think teams are starting to find out to maybe try to get ahead of the curve a little bit, making some deals instead of these last-minute transactions that take place. So it’s been a busy three, four days. We’ve had all our staff in here and in the end, it worked out well. Today we got the veteran defenseman that we were looking for and he’s a character guy and he plays hard. I think he’ll be a great fit for us.”

On why fans should be excited about Kris Russell

“Well, first of all, he’s got experience. He’s a veteran, experienced player, he can play high minutes. I believe last year in the playoffs he was playing 27 to 29 minutes in the playoff games, which is high, high minutes. And he plays hard, he’s a little bit of a ball of hate, he’s a great shot blocker. He’ll be a good penalty killer and he really gives us some live experienced guys as we head into the playoffs, which you need as you go ahead.”

On them being comfortable trading three pieces to get Russell

“Yeah, when you start acquiring veteran defensemen, there’s a price to be paid. He’s a good player and we were willing to pay enough and it’s tough when you lose a young man like Jyrki Jokipakka, and he’s a good young man. That’s probably the toughest part of this business, is when you make that phone call to a young man like that. This is his first trade. The only hockey he’s known is the Dallas Stars. That’s a tough phone call, but he’s a good young man, he’s going to have a great career ahead of him and we wish him all the best. The Brett Pollock kid, he was a second-round pick of ours two years ago. He would have been turning pro this upcoming season, so Calgary did a good job. They got good players back in return and that’s the price that you have to pay as we move forward here, as we want to make that next step with our team.”

On how much the Stars’ struggles in 2016 have been a factor in this move

“Not really, no. As you hit these deadlines, you’re always evaluating your team. I like our team, where we’re at, but you can never have enough defensemen on your team and a little bit of it is moving forward too, we’ve got three or four young kids down in Austin that are going to be knocking on the door next year, so we’ve got to start opening doors for them and that’s the reason that we had to kind of move Jyrki Jokipakka. There’s only so many chairs on the dance floor as we play this game, so it’s kind of a roster move for now. It’s going to help us and it helps us down the road as we build a team moving forward.”

On where Russell fits on the depth chart right now

“Well, he’s a top-four player. He plays high minutes. I think it’s going to give the coaches some flexibility here, might give them flexibility to kind of run five defensemen at times depending on how the game’s going. He’s versatile, he can play left side, right side. So I think it’s going to give, I’ve talked to Lindy already, it gives us some flexibility. You hope there’s not going to be injuries, but if there is we know we’ve got guys that can play high minutes, so he’s a top-four player and he just adds to our depth. It’s a plus for us that way.”

On Russell being compared to Stephane Robidas

“That’s probably a very good comp, a very good comparison, probably a little bit skater than Stephane was, but plays the same type of game. He’s a little bit of a pit bull. He’s from Western Canada, so he’s got a little Texas and he’s got that farmboy mentality and he’s in guys’ faces. He is one of the premiere shot blockers in the game and he’s going to help our penalty killing that way, so he brings a lot of different intangibles and I believe he was assistant captain on the team in Calgary, so it’s all positive for us moving forward.”

On how active they were elsewhere

“We had one other defenseman that we were going after also and it came down to, we had two guys that we had targeted and we got one of those two, so that’s all we were really looking forward to. We’ve got a lot of depth in the organization, that’s what excites me. If we get injuries up front on the forwards, there’s five or six kids down in Austin that can come up and play. We’ve got four defensemen down there that can come up and play and then with the players up here, so we’re in a good position and a good spot. Now it’s time for us to just get focused and get our game going for the stretch run and go from there.”

On the timetable for this trade

“Yeah, it goes back quite a ways. When we start the year, we know who all the free agents are and we start tracking them. If they’re a free agent, there’s a good chance, it depends on how your team’s doing, if you’re a team that is going to be in the playoffs, there’s a good chance you’re going to be traded. We have our meetings in January where we start to narrow things down and we knew that he’d probably be a player that would be available. They wanted to re-sign him, but with the salary cap I don’t think they had room for him, so he’s somebody we started tracking him much closer back in January and then over the last four, five, six days, I started to keep in touch with Calgary more and more as we started to target him.”

On when he made the first call

“Yeah, I did that five days ago and just said that we’d have interest whatever you’re going to do. The GMs, we start talking to each other about two weeks before the deadline. That’s when we really start to get down to serious business and we just kind of mention hey, if you’re moving Kris Russell, we’d have interest. Let’s keep in touch and then as you get into kind of four, three, two days before the deadline, that’s when it gets a little more serious. They call back and say well, what are you willing to give up? We all keep notes on who’s offering what and then we go from there.”

On Russell’s health

“Yeah, he was actually supposed to play their last game and they held him out just because they knew they were going to trade him. Teams are always careful, if you know you’re trading somebody, you don’t want to get them in the lineup in case he gets hurt, so he was ready to go the last game. He was going to play tonight, I believe they’re in Philadelphia, so they pulled him out of the lineup and then we made the trade.”

On adding another defenseman with an expiring contract

“This gives us a lot of flexibility. It’s a chance for him to come in and showcase his skills to us and if it’s a good fit for us moving forward, it gives us an opportunity to talk to him before he becomes a free agent, so it’s all good in that part of the business.”

On if this is something he runs by Lindy Ruff

“Yeah, I sat down with the coaches, we’re talking a lot. You’re always talking hockey. It doesn’t matter, you’re always talking but about six days ago we sat down, I had mentioned here’s the names I’m looking at. He makes kind of his calls too. He’s talking to other coaches and he might know a coach that maybe coached Kris Russell down the road and you then you touch base with him. We’re in the information-gathering business and we gather as much information as we can, and then we try to make the most intellectual decision we can, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.”

On what Galiardi’s role is in this

“Yeah, Tom’s here. Tom came in, came in three days ago, been out to a couple of our games and he’s very involved. It’s his team. Not only when you start to trade draft picks, there’s financial implications in all these things too and he wants to know where this all fits in, but he’s got a hockey mind. He loves this time of the year and he watches players and watches teams. We have great dialogue and we kind of work through it all.”

On showing restraint being trough

“You got to be careful, yes. This time of year, you can get carried away and there’s the short-term view, it’s about making the playoffs, having a good playoff run to the Stanley Cup and then you got to start talking about next year, two years, three years, four years down the road, especially with the cap system now. It’s a pretty complex dialogue that takes place whenever you make a deal.”

On this being a balancing act with waiting on young players

“Yeah, patience is the biggest word. I hope they get as good as they can get real early on, I’ll make that work. It’s patience. There’s going to be highs and lows with them. We forget these guys are 20 and 21, 22-years-of-age and inconsistent at times, but when you do see the full package as you saw Saturday, it’s pretty exciting to see. They haven’t reached their peak yet. I even get back to Tyler Seguin, who just turned 24 I believe, really isn’t in his prime yet. That’s what’s exciting, is to know down the road what these guys, what their peak could be.”