Was Barry Trotz holding Nashville back?

[Bloomfield*]

I remember his refusal to play young guys. Forsberg started to flourish when Laviolette became coach.

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[GoldOnGold]

Probably. Trotz always wanted a certain type of player, and he always coached his teams a certain way. He was really suited to grinding, low-event hockey, but he never could really create dynamic offense.

 

[Arturs Irbe]

He's the defensive minded Boudreau (yeah I know the Caps score a lot of goals but check out Hole-by's stats).

Good regular season coach but TERRIBLE in the playoffs. The Capitals are the Pens little brother and I think they will be shadowed by them as long as Crosby and Ovy are in the league. Too much mental baggage. They either need a large leadership shift or a coach that can command more authority over Ovy and gang.

 

[Legionnaire11]

He's great at getting the most out of marginal players, but always seemed to stifle the more creative players. I think to go really far there has to be an acceptable amount of risk allowed and he didn't really allow it. So he always has good results but never great.

That said, he was also dealt some bad luck in the Preds playoff runs. The first one against Detroit there was a $50M payroll difference between the teams. Then against the Sharks Vokoun was injured. another series where Radulov injured Arnott on a goal celebration. Against yotes we had Radulov and Kostitsyn getting suspended... He probably got a longer leash because of those circumstances. I thought his biggest failure was not winning with Forsberg on the team.

Sullivan - Arnott - Dumont
Kariya - Legwand - Erat
Hartnell - Forsberg - Radulov
Smithson - Fiddler - Tootoo
Nichol

Hamhuis - Timonen
Weber - Suter
Zanon - Zidlicky

Vokoun

That's a very, very good team that lost in five games in the first round.

 

[Warden of the North]

Trotz never had a 1C, which is important to winning

 

[koyvoo]

Team is much better. Far more balanced in attack and defence.

 

[MrMariusz]

Yes, he was.

 

[Hisch13r]

lol No. What held them back was that they had no offense and now they have one

 

[Acoustic]

lol No. What held them back was that they had no offense and now they have one

This comment is simply untrue.

 

[Fugazy]

Team is far more balanced and talented since his departure. Laviolette has them playing some great hockey.

 

[bdub24]

Yes. BUT he also built just the right kind of consistent team that was perfect to introduce hockey to our market. Underdogs that enjoyed enough success to get excited about, but without the complete heartbreak of thinking they were going to own the league and bring a cup parade to Broadway. AND he showed the community how far superior professional hockey is to any other pro sport in terms of interest in engaging and giving back to the areas they are a part of. What I am saying is Barry Trotz was our batman. He wasn't the coach the Predators deserved. He was the coach the Predators needed.

 

[PromisedLand]

I think Trotz comes from an old school of hockey thoughts where experience and safe plays trumps creativity and explosiveness.

I have no doubt that if Trotz was still coaching preds mike fisher would clock higher mins than he is right now and Weber for Subban trade would not have happened.

There is something called evolving as a coach as the game evolves. Some coaches are still too much status quo

 

[PromisedLand]

Yes. BUT he also built just the right kind of consistent team that was perfect to introduce hockey to our market. Underdogs that enjoyed enough success to get excited about, but without the complete heartbreak of thinking they were going to own the league and bring a cup parade to Broadway. AND he showed the community how far superior professional hockey is to any other pro sport in terms of interest in engaging and giving back to the areas they are a part of. What I am saying is Barry Trotz was our batman. He wasn't the coach the Predators deserved. He was the coach the Predators needed.

Are you telling me dark knight is chubby and bald?

 

[bdub24]

Are you telling me dark knight is chubby and bald?

And without a neck.

 

[Devils090]

I thought he got the most out of his teams, don't think he ever had the talent Nashville has now.

You can argue he might be holding the Caps back but they've shown it doesn't matter who coaches there, they can't ever win when they need to.

 

[LCPreds]

Really depends on how you look at it. I'm not sure we would still have a team without Trotz. The reason we've had to get star players creatively instead of via top draft picks is because he was able to consistently make the playoffs. Granted it was usually as a low seed and we'd always get bounced early.

Most importantly it meant the Preds were also viewed locally as competitive and I feel that kept people interested long enough to allow hockey to flourish in Nashville.

 

[PerdFan]

Yes. BUT he also built just the right kind of consistent team that was perfect to introduce hockey to our market. Underdogs that enjoyed enough success to get excited about, but without the complete heartbreak of thinking they were going to own the league and bring a cup parade to Broadway. AND he showed the community how far superior professional hockey is to any other pro sport in terms of interest in engaging and giving back to the areas they are a part of. What I am saying is Barry Trotz was our batman. He wasn't the coach the Predators deserved. He was the coach the Predators needed.

 

[Bloomfield*]

lol No. What held them back was that they had no offense and now they have one

I remember him having forsberg and radulov.

 

[triggrman]

I remember him having forsberg and radulov.

With Kariya and Sullivan.

 

[ThirdManIn]

I remember him having forsberg and radulov.

Yeah that comment was pretty brutal. There weren't many of them, but Nashville definitely had seasons with an offense in the top 10 in the league. Maybe a couple of more seasons with an offense ranked higher than teams that went deeper in the playoffs. Going into the 2012 playoffs the Predators were top ten in the following team stat categories: wins (8), points (5), ROW (5), total goals for and goals per game (8), total goals against and goals against per game (10), powerplay percentage (3), penalty kill percentage (10), takeaways (10) (they were 12th in giveaways, though). They were also 12th in blocked shots, but, at 28th in hits, they were a pretty soft team.

Going into the 2007 playoffs the team was tied for second in wins, third in points, fifth in goals for, a pretty bad 23rd in goals against (but still with a 59 goal differential), third in penalty kill but 17th in powerplay. Still not a bad team, but statistically not as good as the 2012 team and not nearly as healthy going into the playoffs.

Just for fun, in 2005-2006 they had the 11th ranked offense. In 2007-2008 it was 12th. The rest of the time they have had a mediocre or poor offense compared to the league. Some of that was personnel. Some of it was coaching.

This year they had the 11th ranked offense in terms of goals for, and the 16th ranked powerplay. It's hard to make the argument that Trotz never had an offense and now the Predators do have one when you consider that.

Trotz has had some pretty good teams that went no where in the playoffs. Of course, the other side of that is that in 2007 when he had a stacked team, not only was the roster riddled with injuries but they had to face off against the Sharks, the team with whom they were tied for second most amount of wins in the league. It was a brutal series, Nashville having won the first game and then losing the next four.

In 2010, Chicago was nearly silenced before they even began to make any noise. With the series tied 2-2, the Nashville Predators narrowly averted the terrible pressure of coming back to Nashville with a 3-2 series lead when, with less than two minutes left, a single goal lead, and a powerplay, Martin Erat decided to blindly throw the puck into the slot. It was picked off and carried down ice for a shorthanded, game-tying goal. Hossa iced it in overtime, and Chicago went on to win the series in Nashville in game 6.

In 2012, having finally both rid themselves of the first round exit monkey AND the Detroit Red Wings monkey, the club ran into the buzzsaw that was 2012 playoff Mike Smith. This was the team most poised to make some noise in the playoffs. Unfortunately for them, even had they managed to get out of the second round there is little chance they could have stopped the Kings ridiculous run.

There has been a lot of bad lucked mixed in with Trotz's playoff failures, but I think he's still showing his weaknesses while in Washington. He certainly had better, more complete teams in D.C. than he had in Nashville, but isn't getting it done.

I agree with what bdub said, though. Trotz was the coach this team needed to grow its fan base.

 

[These Are The Days]

It's hard to tell because by the end of the Trotz era in Nashville Steven Stamkos would sometimes have more goals than the Preds leading scorer had in points. The Preds used to be absolutely stacked. They went from having guys like Arnott, Hartnell, Kariya, Forsberg and Radulov to essentially a glorified 3rd grinder team featuring Pat Hornqvist. I always argued the case that no one had ever done more with less than Barry Trotz. I had always adamantly defended him and it was made greater because as soon as he was fired David Poile went shopping for skilled players. I said, "Where was this when they were missing the playoffs??"

But now after 3 years of falling short in Washington with an incredibly deep roster I'm starting to see a lot of red flags... like a lot. You are NOT supposed to get only the same mileage out of Backstrom, Ovechkin, Oshie, Williams and Kuznetsov as you did with Erat, Fisher and Legwand. I lost count of how many times Washington tried to chip the puck up the board and failed in game 7.

 

[These Are The Days]

Yes. BUT he also built just the right kind of consistent team that was perfect to introduce hockey to our market. Underdogs that enjoyed enough success to get excited about, but without the complete heartbreak of thinking they were going to own the league and bring a cup parade to Broadway. AND he showed the community how far superior professional hockey is to any other pro sport in terms of interest in engaging and giving back to the areas they are a part of. What I am saying is Barry Trotz was our batman. He wasn't the coach the Predators deserved. He was the coach the Predators needed.

I have no idea how the thread continued after that post and I mean that as a complement. Bravo... well said

 

[Enoch]

David Poile and Lavi created a totally different team once Trotz left, and it is built to succeed in the modern NHL. It is hard to compare because it is almost different eras of hockey. Pre-analytics, expansion team hockey, to aggressive, transition, analytic focused hockey.

 

[Olaf]

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Trotz never had a 1C, which is important to winning

This...The best he had was Arnott, who was decent but not Ryan Johansen.

 

[Shockmaster]

It's hard to tell because by the end of the Trotz era in Nashville Steven Stamkos would sometimes have more goals than the Preds leading scorer had in points. The Preds used to be absolutely stacked. They went from having guys like Arnott, Hartnell, Kariya, Forsberg and Radulov to essentially a glorified 3rd grinder team featuring Pat Hornqvist. I always argued the case that no one had ever done more with less than Barry Trotz. I had always adamantly defended him and it was made greater because as soon as he was fired David Poile went shopping for skilled players. I said, "Where was this when they were missing the playoffs??"

But now after 3 years of falling short in Washington with an incredibly deep roster I'm starting to see a lot of red flags... like a lot. You are NOT supposed to get only the same mileage out of Backstrom, Ovechkin, Oshie, Williams and Kuznetsov as you did with Erat, Fisher and Legwand. I lost count of how many times Washington tried to chip the puck up the board and failed in game 7.

Maybe the reason Nashville didn't have very many skill players under Trotz is because he didn't want them.