Nashville Predators Talk - 2024/2025 Season

[nine_inch_fang]

Very frustrating to see the line up decisions made to start the game then of course they double down and become more frustrating. Last night was an opportunity to showcase an ability to learn and adjust that was lost. Instead, we saw the opposite.

Novak coming back was a good thing. With the way Parssinen has been performing Novak should have easily slid into that 2C position and left the kid line alone. Or if you want to get fancy and haven't liked Novak in that position, move Parssinen up and resume version 1 of the "kid" line.

This would leave you with Sissons, McCarron, and Smith competing for two spots, bench one of them. Short of that, if you're dead set on benching Tomasino, at least move L'Heureux up to Tomasino's spot and leave the previously mentioned 3 on the 4th line together.

Sure, they won last night, (I only watched the first period and that didn't look good) but it sounds like the main reason for the win is the blind squirrel PP found a couple nuts. If not for that (which hasn't happened in most games) you're down by a goal with your goalie pulled trying to salvage another tie. Or, maybe tied at best if there was only one PP goal. So, with the win, we'll see this line up, with Tomasino in the pressbox, Parssinen at wing and Vange getting benched in the third, for three more games because it kind of worked one time.

Infuriating

 

[MrJoshua]

The unvarnished irony of us supposedly shopping for RHD is maddening

How was anyone supposed to know that trying to send a top-4 RD down through waivers would result in the team needing to find a top-4 RD?!? It’s inconceivable!

In a more serious answer, for whatever reason they just weren’t going to use Fabbro in that role. That being the case, the team should have been in the market for top-2 RHD over the summer to find someone to play with Josi. Sometime with a good physical presence and decent skating who can keep up with the game but will focus on staying home and covering while Josi does his thing. It doesn’t need to be a star player. Just solid.

 

[darth5]

I hate to say it, but I am beginning to think Bruno was not the guy we needed. His repeated sentencing of promising youth relegated to the press box over tenured players is hurting the team now. I don't know who should have gotten the nod, and he got some good will with last season's over achieving. Still why are they squandering talent so much, unless there is some issue we are not seeing??

 

[nine_inch_fang]

I'm willing to put Tolvanen (obviously), Fabbro, and even Tomasino on the Poile/Hynes development failure since they played the major early part in that. Losing Fabbro for nothing is on Trotz. Everything is on Trotz/Brunette. If he loses Tomasino for nothing...Trotz (they clearly aren't going to develop him at this point). If Parssinen and Evangelista stall out and continue to flounder because they're put in the wrong position or constantly yanked around...Trotz/Brunette.

Honeymoon is over, start learning and adjusting or get the f*** out.

 

[ShagDaddy]

In my opinion, Brunette’s biggest problem isn’t his line combination choices (although he has some crazy ideas about them), it’s also not his decisions on who to press box (although he has some bizarre ideas on that as well), it’s his inability to adapt. Florida witnessed enough of it in the playoffs to make the decision to let him go after a presidents cup season from the team. We are witnessing it now and we witnessed it last year as well. The opponents know if they can get to center ice, they’ll be able to intercept just about every clearing pass along the boards that are coming their way. Instead of slowing the forwards zone exits down on a possession change to reduce the length of the passes, he still wants them to fast break out and continues to put the defensemen in a nearly impossible situation of making a perfect pass across almost two zones.

I’m not asking for a full blown system change. All I’m asking is that the forwards bail a little later creating shorter defensive zone exits.

He also refuses to change how and when the defensemen pinch and how far down they pinch in the offensive zone. That’s one of the major reasons the team gives up so many odd man rushes and can’t seem to hold the offensive zone for very long. Too many players end up so far out of position. For this style of offensive zone play, they would need 5 two hundred foot players with speed on the ice at all times and this roster just doesn’t have that. Brunette seems hell bent on keeping that offensive style of play intact even though he doesn’t have a roster to pull it off.

It’s baffling to me that a coach at that level can’t make the simplest minor changes to his system to accommodate the players he has. I do know a very good coach that has successfully managed to change his system to match any roster makeup he’s been handed for several years now though. I just hope the organization doesn’t lose him because upper management’s ego won’t allow them to admit they made a mistake.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

At some point, if we're just going to lose and be a lottery team anyway... can't we do it by just ramping up the minutes for young players dramatically? There has to be a cutoff coming soon. Maybe coach/GM think of it as "throwing in the towel" if they do that. Although I bet the team actually improves.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

It's nearly 1/4 of the season in and Saros has as many points for us as Tommasino and Fabbro combined.

 

[Predsanddead24]

I still think that trying to immediately be successful last season rather than being willing to go through some growing pains with the younger guys was a horrible decision. We saw in the tail end of the 22-23 season that we had several young guys in the org with promise so the logical thing in my mind was to pair them with the vets and hope they can grow into their roles. We tried that for about five games and then decided we had to try and win at all costs and I think that ultimately led us to where we are now.

I'll also add that I also wonder if Bruno just isn't very good at the actual coaching part of coaching. For example, Marchessault should in theory be perfectly suited to what Bruno wants to run and he just looks incredibly uncomfortable still.

 

[101st_fan]

After the win last night the team is up to the 4th worst pts% in the league.

 

[Armourboy]

I said last year that last season was a wasted season, and frankly I think its going to end up causing the rebuild to be 7-8 years, if not longer, rather than 4-5. The fans were ready for us to stink last year. People had already prepared to watch the young guys struggle. Now a year later and all of those signings you now have expectations. No one is going to sit around and watch you struggle for very long now.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

After the win last night the team is up to the 4th worst pts% in the league.

 

[herzausstein]

After the win last night the team is up to the 4th worst pts% in the league.

And that's just from removing Tomasino from the lineup. Can you imagine what good things happen if we waive him?

 

[Rock Paper Sissons]

If this season continues to go south over the coming weeks, who is most likely to get traded? Who is the guy we trade to make a big statement?

Josi? Nyquist? Stamkos?
None of them are getting any younger, josi still has massive value and could return a boatload, I think Nyquist is on the downside but could still fetch a second perhaps and who knows what’s going on with stammer… it’d be a shame to see his Nashville time cut so short…

What’s the plan here… this is tough to watch…

 

[luckofirish8]

someone to play with Josi. Sometime with a good physical presence and decent skating who can keep up with the game but will focus on staying home and covering while Josi does his thing. It doesn’t need to be a star player. Just solid.

Describes Fabbro.

 

[Viqsi]

Describes Fabbro.

I dunno, I don't think of Fabbro as a "physical presence". But otherwise...

 

[bdub24]

Bright spot! We only have to watch this abomination two times this week.

Describes Fabbro.

Physical? Fabbro? No.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

Bright spot! We only have to watch this abomination two times this week.


Physical? Fabbro? No.

Maybe confused Fabbro with

 

[Kat Predator]

Bright spot! We only have to watch this abomination two times this week.


Physical? Fabbro? No.

I don't really know about physical. I mean I wouldn't want Lauzon or Schenn paired with Josi and their calling cards are physicality.

Josi has been at his best when paired with cerebral guys who could skate, read plays, and position well. Josi will take himself out of plays, so having someone who can handle the odd man rush coming at him seems better than a guy who's going to try to crush someone.

 

[Legionnaire11]

Here's a decent video that talks a bit about our system (it was made before the season was totally lost).

Feels to me like a departure from the handful of basic systems that you've seen in hockey for decades, and almost unnecessarily complicated. Not only do we lack the speed to make it work (or any system really) but it requires everyone to be darn near perfect on every play and essentially be mind readers. When it works we generate a lot of possession time and shots, but it also leaves us very vulnerable when it fails and not only does the current roster makeup not really jive with making this positionless system work, it's so old and slow that it actively causes mistakes and then cannot recover from the mistakes.

We have a lot of good, serviceable pieces. A good coach would dial it back to "the basics" and get them playing with some confidence before building up a more complex system over time.

At the same time a good GM would be on the same page as the coach and work to target and acquire players who fit the system, rather than whatever Trotz did last summer.

 

[Armourboy]

Tbh I don't think the kind of players to play that system effectively exist in large enough numbers that you could make it work to start with. You need a team of McDavids, McKinnons, Makars, and Josis from 5 years ago. That means Trotz would need to go younger and Brunette won't play them anyways. Although I guess if you had a team of 23 year Olds he wouldn't have much choice.

I still wonder if part of the problem isn't that Trotz is trying to be so hands off he's actually not causing a bad situation to be worse. Maybe normally at this point a GM would tell him to simplify or go home but Trotz is trying so hard not to meddle he hasn't done that.

 

[Kat Predator]

It's sort of beating a dead horse at this time, but from a coaching perspective one has to realize that Schenn-like guy has never in his life been a Josi-like guy. Asking two of those types of players to play the same style in 5v5 is, well let's say, counterproductive. Same goes for forwards. McCarron-like forwards don't have the same skills as Marchessault-like forwards. Yes, they are both Xs on that whiteboard, but the reality is they have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

It's also on the coach to figure out relative speed of play. Just wanting (insisting) to play an up tempo 2-2-1, or whatever it is, doesn't mean your guys will automatically be faster and more skilled than the opposition. Drawing it on a whiteboard isn't magic pixie dust. If your team is, on average, slower physically and at processing the game, then the defenders will react to plays your guys are trying to execute faster than your guys can dream of performing them.

Finally, our coach is seemingly unwilling to balance lines and pairs or figure out how to adapt the 2-2-1 to the players he actually has and their strengths. The obvious example was Fabbro. A top 4 defenseman on most any NHL team, but he was perhaps uncomfortable/unwilling/not-great at skating down to the net front and playing power forward. So we had no idea how to use him and gave him away. It means things like putting all the oldest players on one line and playing them 20+ minutes a game and putting all the youngest players on another line and playing them 6 minutes a game. No concept of balancing young legs with veteran leadership, high skill with experience, etc.

It also translates into putting together a line that has say a slow one-trick pony guy, an undersized guy, and a defensive-leaning specialist and demanding they play fast and interchange with the defenseman and exchange responsibilities. Other coaches are going to know, when the slow guy and the small guy are back at the blue line, we can generate an effective 2 on zero breakaway easily if we get the puck, so just flip it to the neutral zone and go.

Another example would be if you put together a line with 3 below average scoring skill guys and them with a couple of your slowest defenseman on the ice, and then tell them to play up tempo and interchange like Makar and MacKinnon. All the interchanging in the world can't hide that the skills aren't there to pull it off. So the opponent just has to read the play, wait for the inevitable mistake, and jump the passing lane or guy fumbling with the puck in confusion.

The amount of time our guys stay pinned in their own zone (even with a man advantage), the number of passes to absolutely no one, the number of turnovers and quick but inaccurate passes shows that this system we're trying to run is nothing short of a mess. It's alarming that there is little improvement and less adaptation to what is actually happening on the ice.

PS: Sorry for the length.

 

[adsfan]

I hate to say it, but I am beginning to think Bruno was not the guy we needed. His repeated sentencing of promising youth relegated to the press box over tenured players is hurting the team now. I don't know who should have gotten the nod, and he got some good will with last season's over achieving. Still why are they squandering talent so much, unless there is some issue we are not seeing??

I was the first person to call for Bruno to be fired.

Nothing that I have seen this season has changed my mind. The Preds should be a .500 team. With the recent win, they are 6-10-3 for .395 and just ahead of the Stinkhawks. It is a disgrace!

 

[SouthNash]

You have to remember that Willy and Mason are employed by the Nashville Predators. They are not going to get on TV and say anything overly negative.

Crispy used to bash the team when needed.

 

[Armourboy]

Crispy used to bash the team when needed.

I don't think he worried about keeping a job. With his name he could go to multiple places and find some sort of hockey related job.

Willie isn't a good radio host, never understood how he even kept a job long enough in his younger days to get even this far. Mason is an old back up goalie. If he wasn't doing this the best he could probably hope for is some junior team to pick him up as a coach or something.

It's the reason Hal Gill doesn't mind voicing things, he isn't worried about keeping the job.