Sitting in a suite at Bridgestone Arena, general manager Barry Trotz is flanked by portraits of captain Roman Josi.
Action shots of the team’s prized defenseman, plus a display of his Norris Trophy win in 2020, adorn the walls of a cushy private room on the event level.
With Nashville’s best defenseman looking on, Trotz hits the table.
“I need more (expletive) from them,” he says of his players. “I need more.”
Trotz is in agony watching his Nashville Predators struggle for the second straight season. Despite taking swings in free agency and constructing what on paper should be a good roster, it just isn’t happening.
“The confusing thing, the frustrating thing for everyone, is that we just don’t score,” he told The Tennessean on Nov. 21. “You look at the names on our roster, we should score more. Because we have (Filip) Forsberg, (Steven) Stamkos, (Jonathan) Marchessault, we all think we’re going to score.”
These lamentations are a repeat of last year, when Nashville finished 30th (out of 32 teams) in the league in scoring at 2.59 goals per game. This season, it has sunk to just 2.29 goals per game, 31st in the league.
With the Predators in eighth place in the Central Division (6-11-4, 16 points as of Nov. 23), rumors swirled that Trotz might change his coach. Instead, he doubled down on Nov. 20, saying Andrew Brunette and his staff are “coaching their butts off.”
Now Trotz is taking that stance further, assigning a healthy portion of blame to the players.
“I’m watching the game systematically,” he said. “I know who makes mistakes. When the puck is on someone’s stick and they pass it right to (the other team), that’s not (Brunette’s) fault.”
Barry Trotz: Firing coach to motivate players is the wrong approach
In discussing the decision to stay with Brunette, Trotz describes a “bump” that teams see when they fire a coach. In the aftermath of a shake-up, some teams get hot. Some even go on a winning streak. A recent example was the 2018-19 St. Louis Blues, who fired coach Mike Yeo after a 7-9-3 start, then went on to win the Stanley Cup under his replacement, Craig Berube.
But Trotz believes that’s all smoke and mirrors — you shouldn’t have to fire a coach to get the players to play better.
“Over the next few weeks, across the league, someone’s getting fired. You’re going to see it, it’s just going to happen,” he said. “And what you’re going to hear out of every (expletive) player is, ‘Oh man, we just underperformed, he was a really good coach, we’ve just got to be better.’ And it takes everybody off the hook. They go, ‘Well, it was him, not us.’ “
Trotz believes there are other ways to motivate players that don’t involve changing coaches. In fact, he has experience from the 2023-24 season.
“What did I do a couple years ago, when they weren’t playing well? What did I do?” Trotz asks, then answers: “I said you’re not (expletive) going to see (expletive) U2. Then it became a little of the ‘F-U’ tour, instead of U2. It got them to say, screw you.”
After canceling the U2 trip to The Sphere in Las Vegas, the Predators went on an 18-game points streak. Against the odds, they clinched a playoff spot and pushed the Vancouver Canucks to a six-game, first-round series.
There’s no U2 trip to cancel this time, but Trotz says it proves you can motivate players without firing your coach.
“There’s a really good group in that locker room,” he says. “I just need more from them.”
Trotz has suggestions for getting certain Predators players going
Though he hasn’t coached in three years — and he already confirmed to The Tennessean that he has no plans to return to the bench — Trotz hasn’t completely turned off his coaching brain.
To that end, he has suggestions, especially for the veterans. He’d like Marchessault to go to the front of the net more. He’d like Stamkos to find other angles to shoot other than from the left circle. He’s happy with the defensive coverage for the most part, but it could always be better.
“We’ve got to get greasier sometimes,” he said. “We’ve got to get into the interior a little more. As much as we try to reinvent the game, being skillful and off the rush, sometimes you’ve got to get a little greasier. The inside goals still count just as much.”
If nothing changes, and the team continues to spiral, Trotz knows he may have to make tough decisions.
“We’ve got some pieces. The roster is not perfect. Some of that is, a little bit, the roster construction,” he said. “I’ll take responsibility. I think the coaches take a little bit and I think the players do, too. Everything is a partnership.”
Alex Daugherty is the Predators beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Alex at jdaugherty@gannett.com. Follow Alex on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @alexdaugherty1. Also check out our Predators exclusive Instagram page @tennessean_preds.
