{"id":441961,"date":"2026-02-02T20:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T20:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/441961\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T20:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T20:24:15","slug":"predators-add-minority-owner-nick-saban-to-search-committee-for-teams-next-gm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/441961\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators add minority owner Nick Saban to search committee for team’s next GM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gettyimages-2192644636-2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Nashville Predators<\/a> are beginning their search for a new general manager. Barry Trotz announced his decision to step down from the post on Monday, and as majority owner Bill Haslam looks for a new general manager, he’ll get some help from Nick Saban.<\/p>\n

Back in December, Saban purchased a minority stake in the Predators, and his knowledge about leadership will already come in handy. While the team will hire CAA to coordinate and contact candidates, the Predators will form a search committee, and Haslam said the group will get insights from Saban on “building culture” as they look at each candidate.<\/p>\n

“We’ve hired CAA to coordinate the search for us. We have a search committed that I will lead, but Barry and [CEO Sean Henry] and Michelle Kennedy, our president will be on,” Haslam said. “… Nick Saban, who is our newest owner and has a little familiarity with winning organizations, has agreed to be on the committee as well.”<\/p>\n

Saban may be retired from coaching, but he still wants to be involved with sports, and owning a share of the Predators allowed him to do that. In a statement from the announcement, Saban said he still has a “competitive nature and a great passion for sports.”<\/p>\n

If Nashville is going to rely on anyone outside the hockey world for this hire, it may as well be Saban. No other college football<\/a> coach has more national championships than Saban’s seven, and he developed Alabama into a perennial powerhouse over the course of his 17-year tenure. Under Saban, the Crimson Tide went 206-29-0 with six national titles.<\/p>\n

The Predators, meanwhile, have been on a downward trend since winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2017-18. The team has missed the postseason in two of the last three years, and it hasn’t won a playoff series in eight years. The next general manager will have to make some tough directions about the long-term future of a the franchise — including whether a full rebuild will be required to restore the Predators to Stanley Cup contender status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images The Nashville Predators are beginning their search for a new general manager. Barry Trotz announced his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5119],"tags":[53976,5,2409,53975,231,5281,4,19594,2410,53974],"class_list":["post-441961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nashville-predators","tag-general-manager-search","tag-hockey","tag-nashville","tag-nashville-preadators","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nashvillepredators","tag-nhl","tag-nick-saban","tag-predators","tag-predators-gm-search"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116002912764087320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}