Don’t add the Predators to the list of teams making a coaching change this offseason. General manager Barry Trotz told reporters today, including Alex Daugherty of the Tennessean, that head coach Andrew Brunette will be back behind the bench for a third season in 2025-26.
This was the default and expected outcome. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reported back in March that Brunette is under contract with Nashville through 2026-27 plus an additional option year, and that a change likely would have been made midseason if one was happening.
A runner-up for the Jack Adams Award for Coach of the Year in his first two seasons as a head man, the wheels came off for Brunette and the Predators in 2024-25. While the longtime NHL winger guided the Panthers to a Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 as their interim head coach and then helped Nashville to a 47-win season last year, Brunette’s Preds had the third-worst record in the league and the second-worst record in franchise history this year.
The regression was also against the expectations Trotz set for this year with his gargantuan spending spree in free agency last offseason. But the two have a long-standing relationship dating back to Brunette’s playing days under Trotz as a coach in the mid-1990s with the Predators and the AHL’s Portland Pirates, and the latter made a long-term commitment when he brought him in as Nashville’s head coach a year ago.
Trotz’s overall vision for the club hasn’t wavered despite the team’s plunging record, something he made clear today during his media availability. He’ll continue trying to retool the roster via trades to push Nashville back into wild-card contention next season, although expect free agency to be quiet (via the team’s Brooks Bratten). It would make sense that his original pick for coach, when he assumed his GM post, would be given the benefit of the doubt in that case.
Well, Nashville will either improve next season or they will implode even more. Barry Trotz better hope for the former or else his GM days could be over.
I will say Trotz needs to get a better management staff surrounding him as his staff has failed horribly in informing him on decisions.
It wasn’t him that was the problem.
Yikes.
GBear will be happy about this news…
GBear won’t be happy.
I just puked.
The only positive of this is that they’ll be getting a top 5 pick again in 2026. I frankly wouldn’t be suprised to hear guys like Stammer and Marchy asking to be traded behind closed doors. Nothing worse for a player to have to play for a coach/system that they know doesn’t work.
I am sick of all the chatter about how to “fix the team” when the answer that we all have is not addressed: Fire the intransigent coach.
Serious question… what happened to this team and why are they so bad? And why does no one expect them to get better next season?
Subpar coaching/system and no top end prospects who are likely to make a serious impact next season.
Second oldest, 6th slowest team in the league with average size and no center depth. Definitely a coaching issue.
Predoil has a speedometer, who knew?
Trotz
@Gbear — He may be referring to the NHL EDGE stats pages. I’m not fond of their setup and filters, so I keep it in the proverbial dungeon of the old memory banks.
“The NHL isn’t a developmental league.”
-Barry Trotz, non-growth mindset haver and repeater of mistakes
@sorengo99 — Much in the same vein of one Darryl Sutter.