Nashville Predators general manager Barry Trotz ruled out firing coach Andrew Brunette on Nov. 20, saying he believed Brunette and his staff are “coaching their butts off.”
Then, in an interview with The Tennessean on Nov. 21, Trotz also ruled out the possibility of him taking over behind the bench.
“Not a chance. A 0.0% chance,” Trotz said when asked if he would ever name himself coach from the general manager position.
“I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that because I made the decision to do what I’m doing,” he explained. “Like a player, I am surrounded by good people. I’ve got good advisors. But I’m still young at this. I don’t have 40 years of being a general manager.”
Trotz was coach of the Predators for the first 15 seasons (1998-2014), then spent four seasons with the Washington Capitals (2014-2018) and four seasons with the New York Islanders (2018-2022). He twice won the Jack Adams Award (2016, 2019), given annually to the league’s top coach, and he won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018.
But Trotz says when he accepted the job as general manager in Nashville in 2023, he put coaching behind him. Now he’s focused on his front office role, learning the details of the game from a different perspective.
“Not only handling the roster and the players, but seeing how other organizations operate, trying to find that balance of where we want to get in the next couple of years,” Trotz said.
In the NHL’s early days, it was common for a coach to also take on general manager duties, but it’s rare today.
Hall of Fame general manager Scotty Bowman served both roles for the Buffalo Sabres for seven seasons (1979-1986). On three separate occasions, long time New Jersey Devils’ general manager Lou Lamoriello (1987-2015) named himself coach after making a change behind the bench.
At this point, Trotz doesn’t see a likely scenario in which he would step back into coaching.
“If I’m behind the bench at any time, it would be for a game just because we didn’t have someone that day,” he said.
Alex Daugherty is the Predators beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Alex atjdaugherty@gannett.com. Follow Alex on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @alexdaugherty1. Also check out our Predators exclusive Instagram page @tennessean_preds.