TAMPA, Fla. — Barry Trotz stood near a table stacked with snacks Tuesday, flanked by fellow suit-and-tie-wearing hockey wizards Pete Weber and Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman
The men reminisced and traded laughs and stories between periods of the 2023-24 NHL season opener between the Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning.
Six levels below that snack bar in the press box at Amalie Arena, Andrew Brunette wore a suit too. He spent most of his night stationed behind the visitors’ bench making his Predators head coaching debut on the same night Trotz made his own as the team’s general manager.
Twenty-five years to the day earlier, Trotz and Brunette and Weber were together. Trotz was in a suit behind the bench for his Predators regular-season head coaching debut. Brunette wore a dark blue, gold, white and silver Predators home sweater to work that night. Weber welcomed NHL hockey to Nashville over the airwaves for the first time a game counted.
“The years have gone quicker and quicker,” Trotz said after his team’s 5-3 loss. “It goes in a flash. It’s just like a player’s career. You think it’s going to last a long time and it goes by so quick.”
Trotz’s words then instinctively turned back to hockey. He complimented Ryan O’Reilly, who scored a goal and assisted on another in his Predators premiere. He had kind words for goalie Juuse Saros, who stopped 29 of 33 shots. He praised some of the team’s youth, calling Juuso Parssinen by name.
How Barry Trotz took in first game as Predators GM
The meeting between Trotz and Weber and Bowman was interrupted by the impending beginning of the third period. The GM retreated a few steps to his right and disappeared past a Lightning blue door and into Broadcast Booth 6, reserved, according to a white paper sign affixed to the wall, for Predators management.
There, Trotz settled in, assistant general manager Brian Poile to his left and goalie coach Ben Vanderklok to his right. His team tied 1-all. He took note of the goings-on. Various sheets of stat-filled papers sat scattered on a table in front of him.
Trotz is new to this view. He had a trial run for a few months last season, when he worked side by side with former GM David Poile. But this one counted on his record. The only Poile by his side now was Brian.
The man who went 900-659-60-166 as a head coach, putting him third all-time in NHL wins behind only Bowman and Joel Quenneville, has a different perspective now.
“It’s way slower,” Trotz said of watching the game from above. “It’s not as emotional. It’s very, very chaotic.
“It’s easy to coach the game from up here, just because of the different angles, the pace, all that. You can’t see when the puck hops or anything like that. It’s a little more generic is probably the best way to say it.”
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How Andrew Brunette viewed his first game as Predators head coach
Brunette, too, praised his team afterward, save for a not-so-grand first period when the team took 7 minutes, 15 seconds to record its first shot on goal and managed just three in the period on seven shot overall attempts.
Hardly the kind of first impression Brunette was hoping for with his faster-paced, more-puck-possession plan now officially in progress. But he took some solace in the second period, when the Predators proved they’re learning by shooting 36 times with 13 on net.
“In the first period it was men against boys,” Brunette said. “We weren’t ready for the compete. We weren’t really ready to skate.
“They’ll be fine. It’s first-night jitters. There’s a transition and a lot of (new) things we’re doing. That’s always hard, always takes some time.”
Speaking of jitters is precisely what Brunette did some six hours before his team took the ice, before he coached them in a real game for the first time.
The day, he said, felt like many others he’s experienced during his time as a player and coach.
“Everybody has jitters in the first game,” he said Tuesday morning “I don’t think it’s any different than any other year. (I’m) in a different position but opening nights are always fun.”
The Predators will have another one of those when they open at home Thursday night at Bridgestone Arena, site of where it all began for Trotz and Brunette and Weber.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Barry Trotz, Andrew Brunette soaked in new Nashville Predators era
