“The difference of opinion here is that Drew may see this as disrespect, and it’s not at all. We have offered to make him the fourth-highest-paid defenseman in the NHL and equal the highest-paid King in our history. When I look at that, I think there either has to be a miscommunication or Drew’s a 21-year-old and probably hasn’t done what he may need to do here, which is stand up and take charge of the decision.”

“More importantly, tell me which player we’re now starting to carve this $300,000 or $400,000 out of. We’re carving it out of someone’s salary next year and it’s no secret we’ve got some restricted and unrestricted free agents that we have to deal with in the next two years. So who is it on this team we go look at and say, ‘We just gave Drew your extra money, because $6.8 [million] wasn’t good enough’? That’s not good for team chemistry.

“I support Dean on what he’s trying to do here. He’s not trying to be cheap. He’s not trying to be disrespectful. We love Drew. It’s an allocation issue here and everyone, including most of the players I’ve run into in the last week, they get that we are desperate to try to keep enough resources to keep this team together long term.”

Leiweke added,

“Let’s not destroy this relationship or his reputation or our reputation over something like this. We need to get this done. He needs to get back in here.

“We were going back-and-forth for the rest of the game and emotions ran high,” he said. “I don’t recall every single thing that I did say to him. He said some things to me that I didn’t like, and I guess I said some things that he didn’t like.”