You have the 17th overall pick. Of course, the age-old debate at the draft is taking the best player available or picking by positional need. It’s well-documented that you are a team that hopes to get better on the backend as time goes on here, but how do you think things will fall as you get to that 17th pick in terms of that debate?

Lamoriello: I’ve always felt, without question, that you always take the best player available because you can never have enough quality players. Now, if it was a call between two equal players, then you would look at a position and have a choice. When it’s the best player by some sense, I don’t think you should have a choice.

How difficult is it, though, to go out and upgrade your blue line in an offseason in which it is clear there is a long list of teams that have identified wanting to upgrade their blue line as a top priority, and yet there are not that many teams actually selling defencemen? There is a market imbalance. How do you navigate through that?

Lamoriello: That’s a great question. If I had an answer, then we’d have a solution. Like the old proverb, there is supply and there is demand. For certain positions right now, there is more demand than there is supply so we’ll just have to do the best we can. We’re  very comfortable with our defence, with our young players we’ve got coming, and also the addition of a couple of Swedish defencemen. We’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t feel you’re ever good enough in any position, provided you can get better without subtracting to make another hole. You never fill something by making another hole. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

Curtis McElhinney ended the season as your backup goalie. He is a UFA on July 1st. What is your sense of the backup goalie position, whether it’s Curtis or someone else?

Lamoriello: First of all, I think it’s a very important position. I thought he did an outstanding job for us. No decision has been made at that position at this point. Certainly, not much can and will be done, I don’t think, until July 1. We are going to certainly fill that position, whether it’s with Curtis or whoever we feel is the right person that is available.

What do you make of the Vegas factor, though? Certainly, it seems everything seems to be gravitating around George McPhee and the decisions he’s going to make here over the next few weeks. What do you make of that?

Lamoriello: Having been through some of the expansion drafts, it’s very similar. Being one team, as it is, is certainly different from that factor. But George has done an outstanding job. He’s put an outstanding staff together. They’ve been out on the field. Right now, until they get the lists from each and every team — like all of us, I’m sure they’ve put potential lists together on what people can and can’t do, knowing what the criteria is — I don’t think anything can and will happen. That window — the number of days that he has — is going to be very interesting between not only the expansion team but the [other] teams themselves.

Final question, Lou, is about yourself. When you came on as Leafs GM, it sounded like maybe a short-term proposition, but you’ve obviously enjoyed it. You like working with Brendan Shanahan and Mike Babcock. How long do you think you’ll be Leafs GM?

Lamoriello: First of all, the relationship with Brendan and Mike has been exceptional, but not only [with them]. There’s Mark Hunter, Kyle Dubas, Brandon Pridham. The whole staff, in and out… I think Toronto is very fortunate to have the group of people they have with the players on the ice and the people off [the ice]. As far as what the future brings, I’m leaving here and we’re going into a meeting for another interview.