Barry Trotz Comes Homes, Smashville Rejoices
This is meant in no way as a slight to David Poile, but it was absolutely time to change the leadership in the front office for the Nashville Predators.
Trotz has always been beloved by this fanbase as the original head coach and the key architect along with Poile to building a perennial playoff team and making hockey work in the South when many predicted it would fail.
It was only fitting that Trotz took over for Poile, and the fanbase got new life after feeling stale and uninspired in the final days of the Hynes era.
There's new hope now, and even as the calender flips to 2024, we still don't know exactly how Trotz will operate as a general manager. We've seen him in his first go-around in offseason free agency, even though techinically he hadn't officially taken over the title yet.
How Trotz will approach the 2024 NHL trade deadline will be very interesting. No one really knows what to expect, especially with a Predators team that has cap space, desirable assets to trade, and they're in the middle of the playoff race approaching the midway point of the regular season.