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Friedman: Nashville's not too interested in taking steps backwards

periferal said:
They should either be going all in around Stamkos, Machessault, O'Reilly, Foresberg, Josi, Skjei, and Saros right now...Or start selling them off and retooling/rebuilding.
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There is a very wide "middle ground" between GOING ALL-IN and REBUILDING.

Trotz has not shown much managerial acumen thus far, but even he is not dumb enough to think he's in any position to GO ALL IN right now. He'll tweak a bit, per the Haula trade, hopefully also bolstering RD in particular, cross his fingers that the team magically gels next year under a reformed Brunette, and hope to squeeze into a wildcard spot. It probably won't work. But that'll be the extent of his hope.

And if/when things don't go as well as he's hoping, he'll have some assets to sell off at the TDL. Not the big name guys signed long-term with NMCs. Just the Bunting, Sissons, Haula types. And he'll rinse and repeat for 2026-27. And there could be a coaching change along the way at some point, which would probably go a long way towards helping the team improve.

In fact, I expect Trotz will just be in a perpetual "rinse and repeat" cycle along these lines, right up until they fire him. He wants his team to win hockey games NOW. He just doesn't seem to have a very good grasp on how to make that happen.
 
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Took a pill in Sbisa said:
Pretty rich to see all the posters making fun of Trotz off-season last year when his moves were universally approved at the time and had the Preds near the top of most of their divisional rankings to start the year.
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This is revisionist history. The only universal truth is that they spent a lot of money. There were plenty of people that criticized them for adding a bunch of overpriced vets.
 
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Jannik Hansen said:
This is revisionist history. The only universal truth is that they spent a lot of money. There were plenty of people that criticized them for adding a bunch of overpriced vets.
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Doesn't change the fact that across the board there were far more people picking the Preds to do well than do poorly.

I was one of the few Nashville fans telling everyone to pump the brakes, so I clearly remember being tagged as a pessimist around here. The media were all predicting Nashville as a contender in the Central.
 
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I think what the Preds did last year pretty much set them up to be locked into this course...for better or worse. If it's better, i guess that's nice. More likely, it's worse...but there's not a lot they can do about it. And they'll end up with a high draft pick as a result.


The assets of real meaningful value that the Preds even have to "sell off" at this point for a "rebuild", is a pretty short list. They're stuck with icky contracts on older players, and then just an awful lot of filler that isn't worth anything that moves the needle on a rebuild anyway. A sell off would basically just be...convincing Forsberg to leave a place he doesn't want to leave, maybe moving Josi even though he's now got some weird medical red flags that'd hurt his value at least as much as Eichel to Vegas, and i guess teams would take Saaros. ROR i suppose just on name value alone carries some weight. But other than that, it's really just trying to unload bad old player contracts or shipping Bottom-6 guys for mid picks and prospects.
 
Armourboy said:
Doesn't change the fact that across the board there were far more people picking the Preds to do well than do poorly.

I was one of the few Nashville fans telling everyone to pump the brakes, so I clearly remember being tagged as a pessimist around here. The media were all predicting Nashville as a contender in the Central.
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I think there was a combination of "wow, we signed a lot of notable guys" + Trotz really waxing poetic and talking so openly and positively about his plans to integrate youth - which was a refreshing change and music to our ears + the lingering hope from the 18-1 run the previous season.

It was all pumpkins pretty quickly. I probably took the bait to some extent. We certainly learned not to trust any words that come out of Trotz's mouth... he talks A LOT compared to Poile, and he has a certain enthusiasm and says a lot of hopeful things. But he tends to do the opposite of what he says. Now we know. And the Brunette 18-1 run was truly just crazy luck it turns out.

But yes, lots of places tagged the Preds to be a lot better than they were. I think it ranks as a surprise they didn't make the playoffs at least. As a wild card and bounced in the 1st round again. Nobody was predicting 30th. But we really learned just how bad Brunette is as an NHL head coach, mostly. And how stubborn Trotz is in supporting his coach. That's the bigger issue than the signings, buyouts, trades, really.
 
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Given ownership's unprecedented patience for their GMs, the Preds might suck ass for a long time.
Kimota said:
Seems like Trotz did not learn anything from his stay at Long Island. lol Never hire a coach as GM.
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It worked well for the Celtics, but Smart wasn't much of a coach. Seems like you can be good at one or the other, but not both.

As an overall point, though, you're on the money. The coach-to-GM pipeline is filled with guys who think that because their strategy worked for them behind the bench, they can duplicate it in the front office. But it's a different game.
 
thebeernerd said:
Given ownership's unprecedented patience for their GMs, the Preds might suck ass for a long time.

It worked well for the Celtics, but Smart wasn't much of a coach. Seems like you can be good at one or the other, but not both.

As an overall point, though, you're on the money. The coach-to-GM pipeline is filled with guys who think that because their strategy worked for them behind the bench, they can duplicate it in the front office. But it's a different game.
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Different majority owner coming in on July 1st and we have zero clue just how patient he will be. The previous group you were right, but Poile was the guy that taught non-hockey owners about hockey. I'm not sold Trotz gets that same benefit.
 
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That is a really dumb saying. No team wants to take steps backwards. No gm is saying, "well we won 52 games last year, but we are really hoping to get in the 40-42 range for wins"!
 
Grand Admiral Thrawn said:
Well they took a major step backwards last season, what makes them think they will move forward this year?
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The players will magically decide to start listening to their coach and adopting his gameplan more successfully. Mostly? :dunno:

Plus a bunch of useless deadweight like Fabbro, Carrier, Tomasino, Parssinen, and Novak who were dragging the team down with their youthfulness/speed/skill won't be around to sabotage the coach and distract the veterans? :dunno:

:help:
 
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Armourboy said:
Different majority owner coming in on July 1st and we have zero clue just how patient he will be. The previous group you were right, but Poile was the guy that taught non-hockey owners about hockey. I'm not sold Trotz gets that same benefit.
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I had no idea they had a change of ownership. In that case all bets are off, and for your and your fanbase's sake it's gotta be different.
 
Porter Stoutheart said:
The players will magically decide to start listening to their coach and adopting his gameplan more successfully. Mostly? :dunno:

Plus a bunch of useless deadweight like Fabbro, Carrier, Tomasino, Parssinen, and Novak who were dragging the team down with their youthfulness/speed/skill won't be around to sabotage the coach and distract the veterans? :dunno:

:help:
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Brunette is a rush attack coach. The roster is a bunch of guys on the wrong side of 30.

Look, I like Brunette and I hope he succeeds somewhere else, but it's not in the cards with the guys that Trotz saddled him with.
 
thebeernerd said:
Brunette is a rush attack coach. The roster is a bunch of guys on the wrong side of 30.

Look, I like Brunette and I hope he succeeds somewhere else, but it's not in the cards with the guys that Trotz saddled him with.
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Hey, they'll learn.

There's life after 30.

Easier to make 23 players learn to skate and buy in, rather than changing the coach. Trotz knows this.

:help:
 
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