Other than mercifully not having to watch more bad hockey, Nashville Predators fans have been looking forward to hearing Barry Trotz's explaination of the year, his decisions, the future of the team, and the future of Andrew Brunette as the team's head coach.
The day of the draft lottery, and presumably before he celebrates Cinco de Mayo with as much chips and guac as he can stomach, Barry Trotz met with the media to discuss a few of these things. Here is the headline view of how that conversation went. Also, big shoutout to 102.5 The Game for the radio coverage
Brunette's Back, Back Again
For some folks this is a surprise and there were rumors swirling, but Andrew Brunette has kept his job and will start the season as the Nashville Predators head coach. Now there were some vocal critics of his, like star forward and recent free agent acquisition Jonathan Marchessault who held his feet to the fire in his end of year presser, but Brunette still has been successful in two season and awful in one, so he's probably got one more shot here.
Here are Trotz's exact works on the subject.
""Andrew Brunette, to me, is a good young coach. That's why I hired him. He's a good young coach, had a tough situation this year in terms of our team, maybe our make-up, how we came together or didn't come together," Trotz said Monday.Barry Trotz via TSN
"Good young people when you believe in them, just like a good young player, you stick with them.""
It feels odd calling a 51 year old "young" but Brunette is young in terms of his coaching career, and he's not so totally disconnected from the modern game. He even still has three teammates from his final NHL stop in 2011-12 who are still playing in Patrick Kane, Nick Leddy, and Brandon Saad. Trotz had his back. He did make a note about Brunette adding to his arsenal or "toolbelt" and made mention of his serving as part Team Canada's coaching staff under head coach Dean Evason at the IIHF Men's World Championship later this month.
Trotz also mentioned that the rest of the coaching staff, Todd Richards, Derek MacKenzie, and Darby Hendrickson are slated to return.
Trotz is Talking To Everyone
Barry made sure that he said he had Brunette's back, but also seemed to bring up the idea of accountability across all fronts, including his own. Here's a key quote from the boss.
" I have to get it done, Andrew has to get it done and the players have to get it done. Buy in has to come from three levels, coach, management, players. I felt like we were on the same page but it didn’t come together quick enough last year. But we’ll make sure that it does. I always believe in putting your spine into it and make ti better. That’s my message. I had a couple meetings with multiple players to make sure we’re clear. We need to demand more from our key people, we’ve got more to give. Andrew is going to be our head coach and he will make some adjustments I’m sure."Barry Trotz
We don't know exactly what the message is, or exactly what the expectation is, but we do know that everyone is aware of it. This means that the axe will fall this year if things aren't up to snuff.
Will the Roster Be Reshaped?
Yes and no. Trotz made a point to list his top prospects and mentioned Molendyk, Gibson, Ufko, Schaefer, Kemell, Wood, Edstrom, Surin, Stiga, O’Hara, Fink, all by name, with a longer answer tied to Molendyk. He also mentioned that the 7 NHL debuts this year were a franchise record. So it sounds like if there are changes they'll be minor, or internal.
On the offseason, he commented
"I’m looking for hockey trades all the time. I think that will be the biggest improvement in our team, similar to what we did with Bunting, Big Juice. Not much with free agency. We felt last year’s class was better. "Barry Trotz
Let it be known, Barry Trotz LOVES the Michael Bunting deal.
Other than that, Barry said a lot of the same things, and seemed to be pressed a lot on Brunette. We'll see how the lottery breaks, because that is going to dictate decisions in the immediate future as well. It'll be a fun offseason.