The 2024-25 NHL season is one quarter of the way through it and the coaching hot seats are heating up. There will be firings every season as there always is and the Nashville Predators may be the next to execute a head coach firing of Andrew Brunette.
Barry Trotz assembled the team that Brunette has to coach, but there are a lot of good pieces there and it seems as if nothing has worked other than the go-to top line. For a team that came into the season with very high expectations to not only make the playoffs with ease, but to challenge for the Stanley Cup during what was thought to be their window to win, the Predators are last in the NHL.
Typically when a team has underperformed expectations to this extent through this many games into the season, the head coach is fired to give a team an initial spark and get things turned around in enough time. The Predators still have 62 games to get back over .500 and into a playoff spot. The team is just five games under .500, but has to get somewhere around 80 more points the rest of the season to finish around the total where the playoff cutoff usually is.
Trotz has been trying to make a trade and doesn’t appear to be giving up on the season yet as he shouldn’t. The Stanley Cup window can’t be open for a total of 20 games after adding what the Predators added this off-season. They have to be given longer than that to gel and find their rhythm.
According to future odds on who the next head coach in the NHL to be fired will be, Brunette leads the pack at +300 or 3/1. He is followed closely by Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins at +400 and Derek Lalonde of the Detroit Red Wings at +500.
Related: Nashville Predators: 2 Disastrous Offensive Stats Through 20 Games
Brunette is a good coach and did very well with the Predators last season, but this is more of a what have you done for me lately league as seen with the Boston Bruins already this season.
The Bruins were 8-9-3 and fired Jim Montgomery who coached the team to a 120-41-23 record in the regular season.
Given the relationship between Trotz and Brunette, that is definitely a reason to think there is a longer leash there. But at a certain point, when Trotz has exhausted all trade options and either made a trade or not, results have to come. If they don’t, Brunette might unfortunately be on the way out.
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