It’s getting late, to quote New York Yankees great Yogi Berra. And Nashville Predators General Manager Barry Trotz is feeling the pressure of his team’s underperformance.

A couple of weeks ago, on his weekly radio spot on ESPN 102.5 The Game, Trotz discussed being on the prowl for a center. Those are hard to come by, and every team in the NHL is looking for a center. But now, Trotz is already pushing the nuclear option on a team he put together this past July 1st. He is talking about a rebuild if things do not change for his hockey club.

“If we don’t get it going then I’m going to start our rebuild plan a little bit,” Trotz said on ESPN 102.5 The Game. “What we did in the summer was as I said fantasy hockey until we become a good team. If we do not become a good team then we’re going to see a lot more of our kids starting their process.”

The Predators are off to a slow start going 4-7-1 and 3-6-0 at home. As Trotz said, he played fantasy hockey on July 1st when he signed Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Brady Skjei, and Scott Wedgewood. The trio has combined for 18 points (six goals and 12 assists). But something is not clicking for this club that won the offseason.

He wanted to keep the Predators alive and build on last season’s results. However, the results are not there. It seems Nashville always gets off to slow starts. This season’s issue is that expectations were higher for this group with the talent they brought in. Now, Barry Trotz sees the season slipping away fast and is already looking ahead to the future.

“We brought in the veteran players to extend this year and be a threat. Hopefully, in the next couple of years, our young guys come in and they’ll take a bigger role,” Trotz said. “If we get into a position where we fall out and it doesn’t come together then I’m going to start that process and you’re going to see some of the kids and we’ll start our process on getting them the games needed to start developing them and still try to win because we have some good players. We’re going to shake it up if we don’t get going here soon for sure.”

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But if you look at what the Nashville Predators can do, they do not have many options. As their general manager said, they have many unmovable contracts.

“I’m trying to do some things right now. We will be limited a little bit because of some of the contract stuff we do have,” Trotz continued. 

However, the Predators do have a couple of pending unrestricted free agents that they could move in, Dante Fabbro and Gustav Nyquist. Fabbro is a name that Full Press Hockey has linked to the Edmonton Oilers to help their defense core. In addition, the Predators have Philip Tomasino, Luke Evangelista, Jusso Pärssinen, and Marc Del Gaizo set to be restricted free agents this summer.

Not to mention Trotz has to juggle the two retained salaries of Ryan Johansen ($4 million) and Mattias Ekholm ($250,000) plus the buyout of Matt Duchene, who has $5.56 million this year, $6.56 million next year, and $1.56 the following two years after that.

So the salary cap space is not there either. Outside of the contracts, the Nashville Predators have three first-round picks and two second-round picks this coming offseason. He could move some of those picks to shake up the lineup and start moving pieces in and out. When a general manager starts talking about rebuilding, everything has to be on the table.

That includes removing the head coach and finding a replacement. There is still time for head coach Andrew Brunette to get the most out of this club. But that was the knock on him in Florida. When times got tough, he could not adjust. As we know, a certain coach, Joel Quenneville, is out there. Does it mean the Predators look at him? It is a possibility. But it is usually the coach that goes when a team is looking for a spark.

Again, there is still time for this team to turn things around, but their GM is looking toward the future even though their number one goalie, Juuse Saros, is signed to an eight-year extension. But like any good general manager, Trotz wants to improve his team.

“If we get all of those pieces rolling I think we’ll be fine,” Trotz said. “I will still tweak the roster but if it’s just not happening for us then we have to be realistic & start getting some of your kids in & start building. If it’s not this year then it’s going to be next year.”

Though Trotz is optimistic about the season, and he is not waiving the white flag just yet, he knows that he has to start the process to shake things up a bit.

While it takes for a coach and players to click, just look at the Florida Panthers with Paul Maurice in 2023; the talent was there. It just took time. The talent in Nashville is there as well. The players have to buy into the system so the Nashville Predators can go on another February run as they did last year, or else it could be a long season in the Music City.