Predators Hockey Discussion 22-23

[Porter Stoutheart]

Nashville Predators owner Herb Fritch assesses state of franchise: 'Good but not great'

Nashville Predators owner Herb Fritch assessed state of the franchise on same day former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam addressed buying a majority stake.

finance.yahoo.com

In this article from June of 2022 Herb Fritch clearly states the ownership’s goals for the team. “Field a competitive team, be financially stable and contribute to the community”. Winning it all is “hopeful but not a goal.

He also states the Sean Henry and David Poile are the ones that know the business and that the owners are just stewards of the organization. The current ownership group are very successful business people obviously because they’re all very wealthy but they are not hockey people, they rely on Poile and Henry to be their hockey people.

Henry has complete faith in Poile based off of Poile’s contract. I don’t expect anything to change with the GM as long as Henry is still the CEO of the Preds. The team will continue to be constructed to be “competitive, financially stable and contribute to the community” as long as Poile is the GM because that’s the edict he is operating under.

I don’t expect anything to change with this organization until Bill Haslam takes over as majority owner and governor of the organization. At that point we will find out what the new goals for the organization are.

Yes I do not think ownership is who will save us. Our hopes need to rest on Poile deciding that HE wants the team to win. I think he wants to win. Generically. It just hasn’t reached the boiling point yet where he’s willing to pin it on his coaching choice. I sure hope he gets there very soon.

 

[Predsanddead24]

There’s definitely worthy criticisms of how we got to this current team under Poile, but he did have a good offseason for making this team as good as it could be personnel wise given the constraints imposed by our big contracts. Nino and Lankinen have been very good for us and McDonagh was starting to hit his stride before his injury. Jankowski and Gross have been solid depth signings too. That’s why it’s so weird that he has stuck with Hynes to this point. We’re at six losses in a row. You really have to wonder how much worse we will let things get.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

There’s just not much runway left. If we take 95pts as a standard threshold for making the playoffs then the team would have to go 30-16-7 the rest of this season to make the playoffs. Every loss makes that “improbable” split inch closer to “impossible”.

The team has 8 regulation wins in 29 games. What makes anybody think that maintaining the status quo can realistically get us to that needed record?

 

[Kat Predator]

Coming down the home stretch ...

 

[Armourboy]

There’s just not much runway left. If we take 95pts as a standard threshold for making the playoffs then the team would have to go 30-16-7 the rest of this season to make the playoffs. Every loss makes that “improbable” split inch closer to “impossible”.

The team has 8 regulation wins in 29 games. What makes anybody think that maintaining the status quo can realistically get us to that needed record?

And really that is what it comes down too. If Poile and the owners want to make the playoffs then something has to change and you don't have the cap space to change the players so that only leaves you one option. The owners were willing to pay 2 coaches once before but that was pre-covid and the finances may look considerably different now.

If Poile sticks with him for me its an indication that Poile is ok with not making the playoffs this season for some reason.

 

[CRay]

We are in hockey purgatory, what we need is a competitive tank.
Never seen a group of high paid players that cant complete a tape to tape pass without fumbling it.
Maybe we need to work on our hand eye coordination.

 

[BigFatCat999]

What is ownership waiting for to clean the entire front office out??

Money, remember it's not your money. Contracts have to be paid and you have to have interested candidates. When you fire a GM, you also have to fire their staff. That is contract after contract with guarantied golden parachutes. Also, if the team sucks, the pick is better. Patience is better, it sucks, I'm ready for a 2 year rebuild, (this year and next). It's like a house, you want it gone to repair the foundation; roof first, then walls, recycle what you can, then sell what you want to go, rip apart the house carefully, maximize profit, evaluate the foundations. Maybe you want a basement? Expand the floor plan? Build with better materials? Buy the lot next door.

Please be patient. Let's do this right. The season sucks, make your own fun,

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Money, remember it's not your money. Contracts have to be paid and you have to have interested candidates. When you fire a GM, you also have to fire their staff. That is contract after contract with guarantied golden parachutes. Also, if the team sucks, the pick is better. Patience is better, it sucks, I'm ready for a 2 year rebuild, (this year and next). It's like a house, you want it gone to repair the foundation; roof first, then walls, recycle what you can, then sell what you want to go, rip apart the house carefully, maximize profit, evaluate the foundations. Maybe you want a basement? Expand the floor plan? Build with better materials? Buy the lot next door.

Please be patient. Let's do this right. The season sucks, make your own fun,

I don’t think we know Hynes’ exact salary, but it has been rumored to be more towards the lower end of the NHL coaching scale than the higher end? Possibly in the $2-2.5M range?

Nobody should be talking about firing Poile because that’s not even on the table. There is nothing coming in terms of a total housecleaning here.

So what we’re talking about is a surgical replacement of the head coach. Maybe or maybe not with a couple assistant coaches.

There are basically two ways this could go. Barry Trotz is famous and expensive and would likely cost $5M+ to become the replacement. Or. AHL coaches make less than $150k. And are eager to get their foot in the door and may not need to bring their posse of assistants with them.

We’re in Hail Mary mode already. Make Karl Taylor the interim head coach and it doesn’t cost the organization a penny.

 

[Flgatorguy87]

 

[Armourboy]

And that when scoring has been up all across the league over the last two years.

 

[Kat Predator]

And that when scoring has been up all across the league over the last two years.

Hard not to notice that the 2 worst years on the list have been under Hynes. The 1 anomaly seems to be last year, actually.

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Hard not to notice that the 2 worst years on the list have been under Hynes. The 1 anomaly seems to be last year, actually.

The year where practically half the team had what will end up being their career years? Yeah, I think when we squeaked in last year plenty said this doesn't feel right but it's much easier to see the anomaly now.

 

[herzausstein]

Wonder how much of that is tied to how absolutely dogsh$$ our powerplay is. How was our powerplayplay percenta in the good years? This year we are almost dead last in powerplay % .... only 0.4% over Montreal but another game or two of complete incompetence should fix that.

Atleast we are the 5th best faceoff team....

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Wonder how much of that is tied to how absolutely dogsh$$ our powerplay is. How was our powerplayplay percenta in the good years? This year we are almost dead last in powerplay % .... only 0.4% over Montreal but another game or two of complete incompetence should fix that.

Atleast we are the 5th best faceoff team....

A huge portion I do believe

 

[herzausstein]

A huge portion I do believe

I went ahead and mathes out this year. We have had 104 PP opportunities. If we had a middling powerplay% of 22.6%, we wouldve scored an additional 8.5 goals over 29 games. This would elevate us one spot in goals for per game. Wed have to have the league leading powerplay % to be in the middle of the pack in goals for per game. Our 5 v 5 is dragging hard. 30th in the nhl in 5v5 goals for

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Wood

I went ahead and mathes out this year. We have had 104 PP opportunities. If we had a middling powerplay% of 22.6%, we wouldve scored an additional 8.5 goals over 29 games. This would elevate us one spot in goals for per game. Wed have to have the league leading powerplay % to be in the middle of the pack in goals for per game. Our 5 v 5 is dragging hard. 30th in the nhl in 5v5 goals for

Woof. Worse than I even realized. Thought we were just a decent PP away from being average

 

[Kat Predator]

We're 29th in total shots and last (tied) in shooting percentage.

Safe to say our offense is flatlining in the OR at the moment.

(31st in total goals. So that's something.)

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I went ahead and mathes out this year. We have had 104 PP opportunities. If we had a middling powerplay% of 22.6%, we wouldve scored an additional 8.5 goals over 29 games. This would elevate us one spot in goals for per game. Wed have to have the league leading powerplay % to be in the middle of the pack in goals for per game. Our 5 v 5 is dragging hard. 30th in the nhl in 5v5 goals for

22.6% doesn't even seem all that bad relative to past years... it sure seems like NHL PP% has shot up recently in general?

 

[drwpreds]

We have scored 19 goals in our last 10 games. 2 or fewer in 7 out of the 10. (The crazy thing is somehow we are 3-5-2 in those 10 when it easily could/should be much worse)

5 goals scored in last 4 games. 9 goals scored in last 6 games.

Currently 29th in the league in goals per game.

31st in the league on the PP.

To put it into perspective, the Coyotes, a team that is actively trying to lose. A team that many experts said going into the year would have possibly one of the worst rosters in NHL history. That team has a better offense than the Preds do this year. And a better power play. (And only 4 points behind Preds in the standings)

Let all that sink in for a minute.

We aren't a Cup contending team by any measure. But good Lord there is absolutely no excuse for us to be this bad offensively. A complete and absolute fail.

 

[Byrddog]

We are in hockey purgatory, what we need is a competitive tank.
Never seen a group of high paid players that cant complete a tape to tape pass without fumbling it.
Maybe we need to work on our hand eye coordination.

Wonder how much of that is tied to how absolutely dogsh$$ our powerplay is. How was our powerplayplay percenta in the good years? This year we are almost dead last in powerplay % .... only 0.4% over Montreal but another game or two of complete incompetence should fix that.

Atleast we are the 5th best faceoff team....

Both of these are intertwined. The inability to tape to tape pass ends the rush far too often . It crippled the pp as well, puck control is a basic that these guys should have. If coaching has to step back that far in fundementals other areas suffer. When one considers the salary of the core guys this should not even be a issue. It comes down to expectations. It is not too much to expect the basics as fans or as a staff of the organization. When you have a weak coach the issues are even more apparent. If the issues are not intentional a coaching change does little until the GM makes roster moves. One would think that the players have enough professionalism to correct a lot on there own. So that leaves to question have the players lost confidence in the leadership behind the bench or even on the ice. The one thing that is clear the core has taken steps backwards.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

novak recalled

cant wait to see what jumbled up mess of lines hynes gives us tonight

 

[triggrman]

Wonder how much of that is tied to how absolutely dogsh$$ our powerplay is. How was our powerplayplay percenta in the good years? This year we are almost dead last in powerplay % .... only 0.4% over Montreal but another game or two of complete incompetence should fix that.

Atleast we are the 5th best faceoff team....

And really no excuse to have a bad powerplay. We have all the ingredients you need. Playmakers, QB, net front, sniper.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

novak recalled

cant wait to see what jumbled up mess of lines hynes gives us tonight

I suppose we could have called that given he didn't play yesterday for the Ads.

Good for him, he has pulled far ahead as the Ads scoring leader, although I can't imagine he brings the sort of elements that our esteemed coach prefers.

 

[Scoresberg]

Clearly, Poile thought this team was capable of contending. Otherwise, he wouldn't have added Nino and McDonagh over the summer.

Now that the full potential of the team - that Poile had in mind - hasn't realized we have to be wondering how much time Hynes has.

As we've gone over here on the boards, most of, if not all, the bigger contracts are immovable and the team is near the cap ceiling. So, there's almost nothing Poile can do roster-wise right now than fire the coach and see if the new one can fully realize the potential of this team.

 

[hockey diva]

The players also need to play up to their paychecks!