Barry Trotz Looking At Other Ways Besides Firing A Coach To Spark Nashville
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Wednesday Morning Skate segment with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin and was asked about the Nashville Predators and what could be next for them. If it is not the coach, then what is the next move for Nashville?
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
NHL Rumors: Nashville Predators Can’t Make Any Big Impact Moves Right Now
Gord Stellick: “Everyone’s in the playoff race, and here we are at the 30-game mark by in large, and every team’s had kind of a positive spurt, including the Rangers, except Chicago and Nashville. Now, Chicago made a coaching change last week. Nashville Predators, man, another loss was at home to Calgary last night. And I mentioned every now and then, like a couple of years ago, Tampa Bay kind of looked and didn’t make the playoffs, but said, You know something, we still got the nucleus.
We’re going to get back on our horse. And they did. They won Stanley Cups. You can say maybe New Jersey did the same thing. After last year, they upgraded their goaltending. I don’t know if Barry Trotz might think in the big picture, I still believe in things. Where do you see things going there?”
Elliotte Friedman: “The thing about Nashville is now you’ve got, like, I’ve been reading the quotes the last few days, like (Jonathan) Marchessault in the French media, and then Andrew Brunette locally, like, I could bench half the team, or whatever he said with that line. Like, it’s like, you can see it, it’s really unraveling there. Gordo, like, really unraveling there.
NHL Rumors: Don’t Expect a Nashville Predators Sell-Off
So they came through Toronto last week. And the wild thing about last week, it looked like they were getting better. They got points. They were losing in overtime. They changed their system a bit. They thought they were doing better, and then it just went off the rails again. And like the one thing I really heard, I heard it multiple places, like Barry Trotz was determined not to make Andrew Burnette the scapegoat for this, like he was like, I’m not doing that. It’s not his fault.
And like, that’s the thing. Like he was coach of the year last year, Gordy, like, guys don’t get stupid in a year. I think Trotz looked at it as we got a bit of a flawed roster. They were down like they were having trouble with second-line center. Then Ryan O’Reilly gets hurt, and now you’re down like you don’t even have a first-line center there.
They’ve got three right-hand shots, (Filip) Forsberg, (Steven) Stamkos, Marchessault, all kind of do the same thing. They didn’t look quick. Josi got hurt last night (Tuesday night). I was at the game here in Carolina, so I didn’t see, I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of that one, but it’s just like you look at it and you say, okay, they’ve adjusted their system.
NHLRumors: Nashville Predators Still Want To Make Changes
They’ve tried to do things a bit different. The thing that concerns me now is just like, the overall cloud is just growing over what’s been said. And look, they’ve treated young guys. And, you know, we’ve seen Cody Glass is having an initial effect in Columbus, and Philip Thomasino before he got hurt was looking really good in Pittsburgh. And I think the young guy (Juuso) Parssinen like is trending that it could be next for him.
But if you’re looking at that with Nashville, you’re like, wait a sec, like, how does that happen? So, like they were the girl everyone wanted to ask out for the prom at the beginning of the season, and now who wants to go to the prom with them, and something major is going to happen.
Like the way it’s going Gordie, you’ve been around long enough to know it’s probably going to be Burnette, but I’ll say this like Trotz was adamant, not even to me, but in general, that that’s not what he wanted to do that. He felt that was not fair.”
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