NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Around here, they still call him “Coach.”
That was Barry Trotz’s job title for most of his adult life, including 15 years as the head man of the Nashville Predators. He is still getting used to his new one: general manager.
Last February, the Predators announced that David Poile, who constructed the team since its inception in 1997, was retiring and that Trotz would succeed him. In his first season in charge, Trotz has pushed the necessary buttons and guided the Predators to a surprising playoff appearance.
Naturally, Trotz’s coaching philosophy has influenced his approach to management.
“I always try to go back (to) one of the things that (former Predators assistant coach) Brent Peterson said to me when I was coaching: ‘You have a lot of hard decisions. Just do what’s right. You know what’s right. Just do what’s right, and you’ll never be wrong,’” Trotz said earlier this month. “Sometimes I make a decision that I feel is right, and sometimes they are bold and questioned, but I always feel like they’re right.”
Trotz was not looking to become a general manager. After the New York Islanders dismissed him in May 2022, he focused on his family and turned down opportunities to get back behind the bench. At the same time, Poile was considering retirement and wondered if Trotz would be interested in the job.
“I came to the decision way before he came to the decision,” Poile said.
The prospect of returning to Nashville and trying to finish what he and Poile started more than two decades ago intrigued Trotz, who received a crash course in what it takes to run an organization.
“You probably couldn’t have drawn up a better GM 101 situation for any first-time GM,” said Poile, who worked in front offices for more than 50 years.
Once the succession plan was made public in February 2023, Trotz got to work on reshaping the Predators. He had a say in the team’s sell-off at the trade deadline last season, when it shipped out Nino Niederreiter, Tanner Jeannot, Mattias Ekholm and Mikael Granlund.
“We got a little bit stale,” Trotz said. “We lost a little bit of our identity. … The one thing that was constant in the foundation of this franchise was a strong work ethic, and that sort of went away. I think the fans saw it, too. That (effort) that was always part of the Nashville DNA, that the fans really respected, was fading.”
There was a positive development, though. Despite trading several key players and missing others because of injuries down the stretch, the Predators stayed in the playoff race until the very end. They made it 80 games before being eliminated from contention for the first time since 2013-14 — Trotz’s final season on the Nashville bench.
“We were playing basically with a minor-league team and almost got in the playoffs,” Trotz said. “That said to me that there’s still a pretty good culture if you keep the right people.”
Determined to reset the organization, Trotz made a statement with his first two official acts as general manager, trading Ryan Johansen after parts of eight seasons in Nashville and buying out Matt Duchene with three years left on his contract. The Predators will carry Duchene’s dead cap hit until 2029, but it was a price Trotz was willing to pay. He then signed proven leaders Ryan O’Reilly, Gustav Nyquist and Luke Schenn on the first day of free agency.
The message was clear.
“I don’t want you to come to Nashville to retire,” Trotz said last summer. “I want you to come to Nashville to win.”
But few people expected the Predators to win this season. Even Trotz had his doubts, saying the team could be anywhere from “really bad” to “sneaky good.”
As recently as mid-February, it appeared Nashville was veering toward the former. Although the Predators looked more dangerous under new coach Andrew Brunette, who Trotz hired to speed up the team’s attack, the results were not there. On Feb. 15, the Predators fell to 27-25-2 following a humiliating 9-2 loss to the Dallas Stars — the worst home defeat in franchise history and their seventh loss in nine games.
As a consequence of the team’s stretch of poor play, Trotz and Brunette famously called off the Predators’ trip to see U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Feb. 18.
The Predators eventually found what they had been looking for, going on a franchise-record 18-game point streak that captured the league’s attention. Over that six-week stretch, Nashville ranked first in goals for (4.11) and against (1.83) per game. The underlying numbers were equally impressive, proving that the 16-0-2 run was no fluke.
“Even in the beginning of the year, I felt like we had games where we played really well and dominated,” Predators captain and Norris Trophy candidate Roman Josi said. “There (weren’t) a lot of expectations on the outside, and we really didn’t know what (to) expect. Then (Brunette) came in with a new system, so we’re all trying to adjust to the system. … In here, the belief was always, ‘If we can just string together a couple (of) games and be more consistent and just be more connected, we’re a really good team.’ I think it just clicked once that streak started.”
The players’ response to the canceled trip was a sign to Trotz that they had fully bought into his vision.
“I would take culture over a high draft pick,” Trotz said. “Even though you want those game changers, I think it’s hard to burn it all the way down and then think you’re going to win in two or three years. There’s teams that have burnt it down, and it’s been a decade. Once you accept losing, it’s hard to learn to win.
“We have (one of) the lowest (payrolls) this year in the league, and we have a lot of, I’ll say, league-minimum guys on our team, especially at the forward position. And we just refuse to lose, which is culturally great. We’re trying to build a championship culture.”
Trotz is uniquely qualified to do that. His extensive experience as a head coach, which includes 914 wins (third most all time) and a Stanley Cup championship with the Washington Capitals in 2018, gives him a keen understanding of dressing-room dynamics.
It is hard to argue against many of the roster decisions that Trotz has made in his first year. Nyquist and O’Reilly, for example, are the league’s two highest-scoring players who started the season on new teams, combining for 144 points. They and other veterans — Josi, Filip Forsberg and Ryan McDonagh, among others — have set the example for the Predators’ up-and-comers who are about to get their first taste of Stanley Cup playoff hockey, such as Luke Evangelista and Tommy Novak.
“There’s a standard (that) we’ve set,” Trotz said. “We don’t care what you make, where you were drafted. There’s no entitlement.”
Trotz’s fingerprints are all over the Predators franchise. He helped establish its identity. Now, all these years later, he has helped revive it.
“He’s not like me in terms of how he conducts his everyday business,” Poile said. “When you make a change, especially after so many years, I think it’s a good time to pay attention if you’re a member of our organization, because there’s a new guy in town and he’s going to want things different. This is the first time in 25 years that there’s been a new person here. He’s asking things to be done a little bit differently.”
“He’s a great hockey guy. He’s a great people person, and that’s the foundation of everything that’s going to make him successful — those two things. It feels like (the team is) in a really good situation. It feels like the handoff has been really good.”