Nashville Predators Talk - 2024/2025 Season

[bdub24]

He looks like he's playing trying not to screw up still to me. He didn't really jump into the flow of the game. He had flashes of play, and then times where it looked like he was thinking about what he should be doing and then it's too late. Things will slow down for him hopefully, but certainly not in the pressbox. I didn't see anything that made me think he should go down, but realistically I bet Trotz was planning this all along unless he just exploded when he got his chance. He thinks guys need to yo-yo up and down, taking little bites of the league until they can belly up to the full plate.

Given the ham-handed coaching, Id be playing to not screw up too. The folks in charge have zero vision to develop players, be patient with mistakes, and trust the evolution.

 

[weeze]

I posted this in the around the NHL thread but watching the Duchene spitting chicklets interview: I'm really not sure I trust Preds management anymore. You give up on a guy who wants to be here, wants to give things a chance with a new coach.

I dunno man. I'm starting to think Trotz is the real problem here.

I am not so sure GMBT does not have the mentality to be a GM. Just because you are a good coach doesn't mean you should be rewarded as a GM. BT never got as far as Lavy did and had a much better team with Peter Forsberg, Kariya, Arnott, DuMont and many more very good players. Who did Lavy have? RyJo (Injured), FF9, Fiala (Injured), Fisher, Arvidsson, Neal, Ribeiro, PK, Ekholm, Josi. So a decent team but not the scoring power of the former team. It took BT getting a Ovie team loaded to win the SC. Hasn't done much since.

 

[herzausstein]

Young guys can come back up after we sell off an asset or two. Nyquist shouldnt be returning. Maybe we can get a good return for Lauzon or pawn off Carrier somewhere. Sissons and/or Novak can go somewhere as well. Then call back up those we arent using regularly and let them have at it.

Bruno needs the vet toys taken away first if we arent canning him.

 

[ShagDaddy]

Young guys can come back up after we sell off an asset or two. Nyquist shouldnt be returning. Maybe we can get a good return for Lauzon or pawn off Carrier somewhere. Sissons and/or Novak can go somewhere as well. Then call back up those we arent using regularly and let them have at it.

Bruno needs the vet toys taken away first if we arent canning him.

Isn’t this exactly what happened when the organization traded away players and basically forced Brunette’s hand in to playing younger guys?

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Young guys can come back up after we sell off an asset or two. Nyquist shouldnt be returning. Maybe we can get a good return for Lauzon or pawn off Carrier somewhere. Sissons and/or Novak can go somewhere as well. Then call back up those we arent using regularly and let them have at it.

Bruno needs the vet toys taken away first if we arent canning him.

That last part is the important part. Trotz has to force him to play the young guys.

"Sorry about your luck, this is what I've given you as a team so coach the team you have. If you don't like coaching young players, there's the door!"

 

[Roman Yoshi]

Honestly this team has become unlikeable. Hard to believe but outside of Vange, Josi and Forberg. I don't really care about anyone on it.

 

[weeze]

I know I am beating a dead horse but I can't help it. The Preds have either Waived/Traded/Didn't resign players that are playing very well compared to the current roster players. Does that blame go on the GM, The Coach, scouting or the whole bunch?

Tolvanen 8/7/15
Fabbro 3/4/7
Tomasino 3/1/4
Afanasyev 3/6/9 KHL
Sherwood 11/6/17
Zucker 8/13/21

3 of these players would be in the top 6 in scoring for the current Preds team. 1 of them would lead the team in Goals. Sometimes I think they think they know more or better than they really do! Only 1 player is over 30 and 1 is close. The others are all young and look to be playing well. Just not playing well for the Preds.

 

[ShagDaddy]

Honestly this team has become unlikeable. Hard to believe but outside of Vange, Josi and Forberg. I don't really care about anyone on it.

I’ve grown numb to Josi. If they traded him I wouldn’t care. They can’t/wont do that so I’ll just continue to laugh when he slaps a shot from the blue line directly into the shins of a defender and continue to feel sorry for whoever is paired with him when he does his best nightcrawler imitation teleporting from defense to below the net in the blink of an eye.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I’ve grown numb to Josi. If they traded him I wouldn’t care. They can’t/wont do that so I’ll just continue to laugh when he slaps a shot from the blue line directly into the shins of a defender and continue to feel sorry for whoever is paired with him when he does his best nightcrawler imitation teleporting from defense to below the net in the blink of an eye.

Josi's style of play is probably a lot easier to stomach if the team is winning. Sure, be a hot dog who racks up points and lets his teammates bail him out at the other end. That's fine if the team isn't sucking and it's fun to have a guy at the NHL Awards banquet repping your city for an award. But times like this... ehhh...

 

[Armourboy]

I know I am beating a dead horse but I can't help it. The Preds have either Waived/Traded/Didn't resign players that are playing very well compared to the current roster players. Does that blame go on the GM, The Coach, scouting or the whole bunch?

Tolvanen 8/7/15
Fabbro 3/4/7
Tomasino 3/1/4
Afanasyev 3/6/9 KHL
Sherwood 11/6/17
Zucker 8/13/21

3 of these players would be in the top 6 in scoring for the current Preds team. 1 of them would lead the team in Goals. Sometimes I think they think they know more or better than they really do! Only 1 player is over 30 and 1 is close. The others are all young and look to be playing well. Just not playing well for the Preds.

Well Tolvanen can't go on either the GM or Coach, neither were in their positions.

Afanasyev demanded a roster spot, that generally doesn't go over well with any GM. He also did the same thing to SJ, so I think in his case he was listening to the smoke his Agent was blowing rather than being realistic.

Sherwood, the board pretty much agreed we shouldn't bring him back, so with him its more looking at hindsight because a guy found a good situation for himself.

Zucker was an UFA. Even if Trotz did try to bring him back there is no guarantee he wanted to be here over somewhere else. The ball is far more in his court than in Trotz imo.

Now Fabbro and Tomasino? Absolutely shove all the blame you want on the GM and Coach because those have both clearly been mistakes by both.

 

[beardawg]

I'm really not sure why there's any care in the world about Afanaseyev anymore. No NHL team wanted him in their organization and he's underperforming in the KHL. Ozzy almost cracked opening night and I imagine we'll see him in gold at some point this season. I'd say the evaluation team got that one right

 

[Armourboy]

I'm really not sure why there's any care in the world about Afanaseyev anymore. No NHL team wanted him in their organization and he's underperforming in the KHL. Ozzy almost cracked opening night and I imagine we'll see him in gold at some point this season. I'd say the evaluation team got that one right

I wasn't happy about it at first, but once he bounced on SJ after being traded that told me all I needed to know.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Afanaseyev has kind of sucked in the KHL also. He did get to the point where he was mastering the AHL level of play. So he definitely had "earned an extended look" in the NHL. But I doubt he would have amounted to anything. That is indeed a lot different from the other guys we usually complain about.

And I agree on Sherwood also. He hustled and had some jam, I do like him better than Smith, McCarron, and Jankowski. But I never figured he would ever matter in any way. I'm glad he hustled himself into a successful spot, but I don't blame management for letting him walk. He just never showed THAT much here.

Zucker looked alright here. But he got $5M. There is no way in hell I was giving that guy $5M.

 

[Kat Predator]

Ultimately I'm glad we're sending him down if we're not going to give him any real opportunity. It is wild that while he wasn't lighting the world on fire he had 8 games of solid play and then one bad game where he was a -3 and that was it for him.

1 bad game gets you superglued inside the coach's dog house.

What a meritocracy.

 

[Top 6 Spaling]

Reposting from the game thread: it's very clear we have better, cheaper, younger options than Lauzon and Carrier. Would trade them for whatever we can get

 

[Roman Yoshi]

Couldn't agree more. There is no reason to keep those two on an NHL roster.

 

[101st_fan]

After beating the struggling Rangers:
- still 32nd in the league (t-worst pts%, fewest wins)
- need to win eight in a row to reach .500 hockey. 8-0-1 or better to reach the midpoint of the season at .500.
- Odds are that once Lauzon and Carrier are healthy that we see them back in the lineup. Carrier is in year one of a 3.75M deal given by Trotz ... moving him requires Barry tacitly conceding he made a bad choice, then finding someone to take that AAV.
- Remain at the bottom of goals for per game and goals scored 5on5. None of our players currently on pace for 25 goals.

 

[Scoresberg]

It just so figures that the guy (Lian Bischel) Dallas drafted in 2022 right after we picked up Kemell is looking very strong early on in his NHL career. Playing on the top pair and has two goals in his first three career games. Whereas Kemell has stagnated (if not regressed) in the AHL...

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It just so figures that the guy (Lian Bischel) Dallas drafted in 2022 right after we picked up Kemell is looking very strong early on in his NHL career. Playing on the top pair and has two goals in his first three career games. Whereas Kemell has stagnated (if not regressed) in the AHL...

Bischel is a beast. But... I don't ever remember even remotely talking about him as our potential pick here? I think we were mostly just thrilled Kemell dropped to us? TBH, I'm not sure if I'd swap out Kemell for anybody picked after him? Maybe Yurov? Even now, while Kemell isn't really setting the world on fire and might bust?

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

One thing I wonder about... guys like Stastney and Wilsby have waltzed in here without stupendous AHL numbers, and I'm honestly taking them over our incumbents like Lauzon/Carrier/Schenn. That's not even up for debate, IMO. The AHL guys are hands down better.

So that's for D. What about F?

L'Heureux and Svechkov IMO really took off in the latter part of last season in Milwaukee. It's not the "cooking" timeline, but is there any reason to think they are even better than we think, if you actually gave them an honest opportunity for minutes on the big team? AHL numbers aren't everything. Tomasino and Parssinen didn't exactly explode in Milwaukee either, but I think they are NHL players.

 

[Scoresberg]

Bischel is a beast. But... I don't ever remember even remotely talking about him as our potential pick here? I think we were mostly just thrilled Kemell dropped to us? TBH, I'm not sure if I'd swap out Kemell for anybody picked after him? Maybe Yurov? Even now, while Kemell isn't really setting the world on fire and might bust?

I was pushing for Bischel pre-draft but that was until Kemell dropped on draft day. Was quite happy with that pick.

That isn't to say that I should be held in the same regard as professional scouts. Their job is to find those guys and early on looks like Dallas found their core guy whereas we missed (again).

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Gotta hand it to the star's amateur scouting. They've done some strong drafting recently.

 

[herzausstein]

So once Lauzon, Carrier, and Josi slot back in and the defense goes back to being a clown show does Trotz admit that we need an overhaul there? Wilsby and Blankenburg have outplayed both Lauzon and Carrier.

Skjei is actually playing decent defense and looks like Blankenburg is a good match for him. Schenn has actually been ok with MDG which i think makes sense. They have complimentary play styles. Stastney would work well there too. Wilsby has been solid everywhere tried.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Gotta hand it to the star's amateur scouting. They've done some strong drafting recently.

They haven't been picking drastically different from us in terms of position.... but if you can land Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, Mavrik Bourque, Thomas Harley, and Lian Bischel... vs. us blowing Tomasino, trading Askarov, still waiting on Svechkov and Kemell... I mean, they are killing us out of the gate. Hopefully time will tell at least a bit of an improvement on our side... but we don't have any NHLers to show, and they have 5.

 

[herzausstein]

I for one, would love to see Stankoven playing with Smith and McCarron