Three Things Barry Trotz is Looking to Change for Nashville Predators

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Barry Trotz, although not official until July 1, is steering the ship now for the Nashville Predators front office and addressed the media earlier this week on his vision moving forward.

Many are eager to see just how Trotz is going to change philosophies and team-building approach for a franchise who has only ever had one other general manager and coming up on 25 years of existence, and still no Stanley Cups.

Plenty of regular season success and individual success stories, but not the ultimate prize.

Trotz is going to be under a microscope and judged meticulously by his every move he makes as general manager in the early goings of his tenure.

Even the simplest of transactions are going to be either heavily scrutinized or heavily praised. It just comes with the territory when you’re new in the role and expectations are high to succeed.

Obviously, patience is going to be required in Trotz’s new role. It’s his first general manager gig, and there’s going to be some trial and error. However, Trotz does already seem to have a firm grasp on what’s holding back this franchise from being among the elite teams in the NHL, and he’s been very forthcoming in what his plans are.

Here’s three things that Trotz said in his Monday presser that really stood out in terms of changes and improvements he wants to make in the coming months, and even years.

Time to Get Faster and Catch Up with the Rest of the NHL

The game is changing. It’s evolving into a more offensively-driven league with speed and scoring off the rush. It was painfully obvious, and has been for a few years, that the Predators can’t keep up in this facet of the game among the NHL’s top-tier teams.

Trotz told the media on Monday that he wants to address this deficiency:

“I’m looking to get faster,” Trotz said. “I want to add some size at key positions, and I want to add a little more scoring”.

Now the last part of that statement couldn’t be more obvious. The Predators were 27th in Goals Scored at 5-on-5 and 28th in Goals Per Game. So how do we fix this for 2023-24?

I’m zeroed in on the first part, saying he wants to get faster. This makes me wonder if he does indeed want to keep Head Coach John Hynes for another season, because if so, that probably wouldn’t match up well with wanting to get faster and Hynes’ system of dumping the puck and looking to be more physical.

Good news for Trotz is if he wants to get faster, we saw that unfold to a degree down the stretch with the younger players getting playing time. Tommy Novak showcased his speed and talent to move the puck to generate chances for his linemates.

Cody Glass isn’t blazing down the ice, but he certainly shows more of a speed element to his game that that of a Ryan Johansen, which we’ll get to on the next slide.

Philip Tomasino, Luke Evangelista, Egor Afanasyev and even Juuso Parssinen fit into this speed element as well. When you get younger, you can get more aggressive with how you attack offensively.

One thing is certain; for the Nashville Predators to catch up with the rest of the NHL’s top teams, many of whom are in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs currently, they have to adopt a more offensively aggressive approach built on speed and taking some chances.

You have some pieces already here, but you’re going to need to find at least one free agent over the summer to boost this area even more if possible. This is probably a more long-term goal that can’t be immediately obtained this summer.

Breaking Down the Status Quo

One of the biggest frustrations I come across from other Predators fans is overpaid players not living up to their contracts and subsequent playing time. It was a major criticism of David Poile during his tenure, and now we’re all anxious to see how Trotz will address underperforming veterans.

This quote from Trotz in regards to veterans and finding a place in next year’s lineup was very interesting:

“Some of the older players may not get some of the minutes that they did in the past, so they’ve got to sort of remake themselves a little bit and find their role”

Now that’s what I call being honest and unfiltered. Trotz is basically being blunt here and putting the veterans on notice, as if they didn’t already get that message at the trade deadline when the front office parted ways with four key players while in the midst of a playoff race.

The player who sticks out the most when thinking about veterans and their place in the lineup is undoubtedly Ryan Johansen.

After suffering an injury to his leg from a skate blade in late February, it put more pressure on Glass to produce as a top-six center, and paved the way for Evangelista to make his NHL debut on February 28 and go on to notch 15 points in 24 games.

The challenge in training camp is going to be resisting the urge to fall back to the status quo, and that’s not just directed at Johansen. But quite frankly, the team has already gotten pretty young after the trade deadline, at least among their forwards.

Filip Forsberg isn’t going anywhere and will be the centerpiece at the top, as will Matt Duchene. After that, it really comes down to what happens with Johansen? That’s what I take from this quote from Trotz.

Trotz can’t be afraid to take chances and shape this team with young players who are hungry and can change how this team finds success. That means not going after recycled veterans in the offseason.

We can’t see the same old rerun we saw with Poile of being just good enough to make the playoffs, but a gap the size of the Grand Canyon away from the elite teams.

Can We Finally Give Juice Some Help??

This franchise has lived and died by elite goaltending for over a decade now spanning over careers of Pekka Rinne and Juuse Saros. We are extremely fortunate to go from Rinne to Saros, but wasting the careers of both of these elite goaltenders without winning a Stanley Cup gives me nightmares.

Trotz made a rather subtle comment on this, but it still stood out to me:

We’ve got elite goaltending. Elite goaltending covers a lot of stuff up. I want to temper the expectations a bit”.

Yet another very forthcoming and genuine observations that I appreciate from Trotz on what we’ve all seen for a while now. This team can only go as far as Saros, and for the longest time Rinne, can take them.

This team has to evolve into a team that can win even when their goaltender has an off night. These are all humans and have bad days at the office. When Saros has a bad day at the office, you can almost bet the farm the Predators are going to lose.

Saros had the highest Expected Goals Against in the NHL this past season at 217.67 while also being the NHL leader in Goals Saved Above Expected at 46.7. He seized control of that top spot as the Predators were trying to miraculously defy the odds and claim a playoff spot. They came up three points short.

Furthermore, Saros received just 2.57 goal per game of goal support, which is among the lowest in the NHL among goaltenders with at least 40 starts.

Lowest Goal Support for Goalies with 40-plus Starts

(Per PlusMinusLine.com)

John Gibson, ANA- 2.32 Goals Per Game
Carter Hart, PHI- 2.52 Goals Per Game
James Reimer, SJ- 2.55 Goals Per Game
Juuse Saros, NSH- 2.57 Goals Per Game
Jake Allen, MTL- 2.62 Goals Per Game

Trotz is addressing the gigantic elephant in the room; this team can’t can’t over the hump until they start helping out their goaltender and not relying on elite level of play between the pipes to cover up their deficiencies.

Now to be fair, the Predators did start to gradually build on something defensively down the stretch, most notably on the penalty kill. They rallied to finish top-10 in the NHL in penalty kill success, finishing at sixth with a 82.6 success rate.

To play devil’s advocate, how much did Saros have to do with that? Probably a decent amount, but I also saw guys laying their bodies out there and committing to not getting beat on special teams. So there’s something to build on in the offseason.

Until the Nashville Predators become a team that can beat you with goaltending or with a high-scoring offensive attack, they’re never going to hang with the NHL’s most elite teams. Trotz sees that and knows he has some pieces already here but obviously has to get creative in the offseason as well.

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