Nashville Predators General Manager Barry Trotz appears to be remaining loyal to a fault to Head Coach Andrew Brunette. We've already seen the Chicago Blackhawks, a team with much lower preseason expectations, fire their head coach in Luke Richardson.
The Predators and Blackhawks are basically in a two-way battle for the title of last place in the Central Division, but the Predators are sticking with their second-year head coach in Brunette. At least for now, but how much longer can they really afford to wait? And what would be the point in doing that if you're Trotz?
Even the most loyal supporters of Brunette, which I myself have been one, are now coming around that this just can't continue.
The Head Coach is usually the first domino to fall
Things can't really get any uglier for the Predators right now. The team was built on paper in the offseason to be an offensive force to be reckoned with, but struggled to even score two goals in a game. They're currently on a six-game stretch of scoring two goals or less while compiling a record of 0-3-3.
The team was supposed to have a great power play with Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault joining, but the power play has plummeted to 20th in the NHL and now has to survive for at least a week or two without Ryan O'Reilly, one of their key contributors to the man advantage.
It really does seem inevitable at this point that Brunette will get fired by Trotz. It's just a matter of when it actually happens, and why Trotz would wait any longer. The Predators' playoff odds according to MoneyPuck are at 7.7 percent.
Again, if Trotz has the ultimate blind loyalty to Brunette, then yes it's possible that he's willing to go down with the ship instead of firing his guy. That would be crazy if so, but perhaps Trotz wants to give Brunette a little bit longer to find a winning streak.
Here's the problem I have with that notion; this team isn't playing an exciting or commendable brand of hockey that's ending in poor fortune in the final score. If they were losing in valiant fashion then maybe I can see this argument of giving Brunette more of a leash to pull this team out of it.
This just isn't the case. The body language on the ice is horrible. None of the players look like they're having fun anymore. They're not even going down swinging in these losses. It's only by the fortitude of Juuse Saros, and a few of the young players, that this team is even managing to get some overtime points.
So with that said, I don't see this team having another 18-game point streak in their back pocket. Honestly, I don't even see a five-game point streak as realistic with the way this team is failing to generate offense and deliver in clutch moments of the game.
The best course of action for Trotz is to get this over with and fire Brunette. I've been more patient at coming around to this stance than most of the fanbase. Up until a couple weeks ago, I'd say prior to the November 25th loss to the New Jersey Devils, I was remaining on the "don't fire Brunette yet" train.
My argument then was of course for one that it was still really early in the season, and also the analytics were suggesting that the Predators were doing a lot of the right things but just not finishing. I had hope that their league-worst shooting percentage would gradually improve and in turn, more goals and more wins.
As you can imagine, my opinion has changed a bit since then. I still think this isn't just a Brunette issue, but the team has won just two games and lost nine since I wrote that piece. So obviously my thoughts have changed.
But since that loss to the Devils, a game where the Predators got exposed badly as a slow team with no cohesion, I've come around that this team is a mess that can't be fixed with one flip of the switch. It needs a massive overhaul, like gutting out a house. Sure, the finished product will be worth it if you do it right, but it's going to take time and a lot of patience.
Trotz has to admit failure by firing Brunette, and find a candidate that fits this roster
For this to really happen properly, Trotz is going to have to check his ego at the door and basically admit his first head coaching hire was a failure. Moving on from a guy before the halfway point of Year 2 of his campaign after finishing runner-up in the Jack Adams voting the year before is wild, but it happens all the time in the NHL. Front offices just don't usually give a lot of time for a head coach to fix the problems. Instead the front office cans the head coach first, and then addresses the roster.
If Trotz does fire Brunette in the coming days or weeks, then he can go get a head coach he really wants as a replacement. If he waits too long to do the inevitable in firing Brunette, he risks the head coaching candidate pool getting smaller.
To that degree, I really like Jay Woodcroft as a fit for the Predators. He got let go in his third year as head coach of the Edmonton Oilers early on in 2023-24. At the time I thought it was nuts to fire a head coach so early in the season, 13 games in, after that head coach had a .643 points percentage and was coming off a 109-point season.
Woodcroft proved he can coach elite superstar talent, and successfully coached the best player in the word in Connor McDavid. I still think the Oilers fired him too soon, and Woodcroft is a head coach that will be picked up by someone before the season ends. Will it be the Predators?
Additionally, Woodcroft is a younger head coach that could connect well with the younger core of the Predators like Luke Evangelista, Zachary L'Heureux, Fedor Svechkov, Adam Wilsby and Tommy Novak.
There are other intriguing head coaching candidate that have their pros and cons, like Gerard Gallant, Bruce Boudreau or maybe even Milwaukee Admirals Head Coach Karl Taylor.
If Trotz were to keep things in house and promote Taylor to Nashville Predators Head Coach, then it might make more sense to make that change in the offseason. You can go the interim head coach route for the rest of the season, let Taylor finish out his current season with the Admirals, and then make the jump up to the NHL in the summer of 2025.
Either way, I don't think it makes much sense to keep dragging this out with Brunette. I give it like a one percent chance that some mirarcle happens and the Predators become the NHL's hottest team like they did last season.
If that is what Trotz is waiting for to happen, then he might as well keep Brunette to 2025-26 and see if overhauling the roster works. But usually it's much more direct to just fire the head coach, even if it's not all entirely on the head coach for the problems, which we know isn't the case. It's a shared blame across the board, including with Trotz.