Begin new era with Trotz as general manager, Brunette as coach
ByJohn Glennon
NHL.com Independent Correspondent
NHL.com is providing in-depth roster, prospect and fantasy analysis for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1-Sept. 1. Today, the Nashville Predators.
The Nashville Predators will once again rely on a core of veterans to help guide their emerging, young talent this season.
The names of those experienced leaders, however, have changed since the end of the 2022-23 season.
In signing center Ryan O'Reilly (four years), defenseman Luke Schenn (three years) and forward Gustav Nyquist (two years) during free agency, the Predators added players who have participated in a combined 188 Stanley Cup Playoff games and won a combined three Stanley Cup championships.
Nashville also chose to move on from two longtime top-six forwards, trading Ryan Johansen to the Colorado Avalanche and buying out the final three seasons of Matt Duchene's contract.
"I wanted to change a little bit of the culture," said Barry Trotz, who took over as Predators general manager July 1 following David Poile's retirement. "Not that the culture was bad, it just needed a little tweak. I was looking for serial winners. I wanted to allow a path for our young guys to develop and be surrounded by those type of people and have those placeholders in place so we can let that skill, speed, all those things that we've drafted, mature and get to a place where we're going to have a good run at it for a long time."
In O'Reilly, the Predators get a top-line center, a 14-year NHL veteran who has 702 points (256 goals, 446 assists) in 991 regular-season games. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy voted as playoff MVP in 2019, when he helped the St. Louis Blues win the Cup, and was the St. Louis captain for three seasons (2020-23), so the 32-year-old's leadership qualities carried great weight with Nashville.
"He reminds me of a Joe Pavelski-type of guy, a guy that continues to produce," Trotz said. "People follow him and everybody around him is better. That really, for me, for our young guys, our culture, that was critical. That was a critical piece for us."
Schenn, 33, helped the Tampa Bay Lightning win back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021. A physical player who's had over 200 hits in eight of his 15 seasons, Schenn (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) may be paired with captain Roman Josi.
"I don't like sometimes when Roman takes some big hits," Trotz said. "Luke will make sure those big hits won't be coming too often."
Nashville Predators 2023-24 Season Preview
Nyquist, who has scored more than 20 goals four times in his 11-year career, should help bolster a forward group that also lost Nino Niederreiter, Mikael Granlund and Tanner Jeannot, who all were traded leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline last season.
Andrew Brunette was hired as coach, replacing John Hynes after Nashville failed to reach the playoffs for the first time in nine seasons. Brunette was 51-18-6 as interim coach for the Florida Panthers in 2021-22.
In Brunette's stint with the Panthers, they finished the season first in goals (337) and had a power-play success rate of 24.4 percent, tied for fourth in the NHL.
"I wouldn't say I'm an offensive coach," Brunette said. "I think my philosophy on how I see the game is I kind of want to dominate the puck, and I want to have it as much as I can have it. I don't want to chase it around too much, so it's not really offensive, it's more, when you have it, keep it, and when you don't have it, get it back as soon as possible."
The Predators goalies, Juuse Saros and Kevin Lankinen, should keep them competitive even when offense is hard to come by. Saros had a .919 save percentage in 63 starts last season and finished fourth in the voting for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the best goalie in the NHL.
Josi, the 2019-20 Norris Trophy winner, should continue to contribute at both ends of the ice. He'll be aided at defenseman by power-play specialist Tyson Barrie, acquired last season when the Predators traded defenseman Mattias Ekholm to the Edmonton Oilers. Schenn and fellow veteran Ryan McDonagh will play important minutes.
Evangelista, 21, had 15 points (seven goals, eight assists) in 24 games after his promotion from Milwaukee of the American Hockey League last season. He was selected in the second round (No. 42) of the 2020 NHL Draft.
Trotz wants such talents surrounded by the right veterans this season.
"You don't want all your kids coming [to the NHL level] at once," Trotz said. "You need two or three kids, [then] two or three kids, [then] two or three kids. You sort of need players who can help them through that and then hopefully when different guys' contracts expire, you can put another piece in. So, we're set up pretty good that way."
