Timing everything for Trotz

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This article was published 09/11/2023 (696 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Barry Trotz thought long and hard about the opportunity to come home to become the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets.

Manitoba isn’t just where Trotz was born and raised, it’s where he got his start in coaching and it was where the road to the NHL began.

After getting fired by the New York Islanders in the summer of 2022, Trotz was in the mix for the job that eventually went to Rick Bowness, but ultimately determined that the timing wasn’t right.

“This organization is run by some terrific people,” Trotz said during a one-on-one discussion that covered a lot of ground before the Jets faced his Nashville Predators. “That was the hardest part. It was me deciding, was I going to coach or go in a different direction and it was tough, because of the quality of people that were here. This is home. My dad still lives up in Dauphin and I have aunts and uncles and relatives that live in Winnipeg. There are so many people and good friends in Winnipeg, so that was tough. It wasn’t as easy as from the outside, it seemed. And to me, it was all about being the right place for me and I had to be in the right head-space.

“This job is demanding on the coaching side. It hardens you. If you lose a game, you don’t sleep until you win another game. That’s why those losing streaks are hell on coaches. All of those things, I just weighed and I just felt that for me, it was time that I let the next generation take that workload and move on.”

The lure of coming home was strong — and not just because of the free beer for life that was offered by a local brewery as an incentive — something his friends still give him some good-natured grief about.

“I still have buddies to this day that are mad at me for all of the free beer we could have had,” said Trotz. “They said ‘You really disappointed us.’”

That’s not to say the temptation wasn’t real.

“I didn’t have a playbook for what I was going to do. It was about what feels right. You always know what it is, though sometimes it takes some time to know,” said Trotz. “But it was time. It was time for me. I had never really had a break in my career from a coaching standpoint. If I had been let go and had a year off, those things would have helped you. But I went pretty straight from coaching in Dauphin, Manitoba, to my last year with the Islanders and never had much of a break.

“It felt like my family needed some time, so I did what I did.”

In this business, timing is everything and the reason this potential union didn’t happen is another example of that.

“Obviously, when I was let go from the Islanders, I had a whole summer of family things that needed to be done,” said Trotz. “In this business, you miss a lot of things and I never really had a year where you’re sitting out a year and a job comes up. I basically went from one job to another within days or hours and never really had a break.

“I’ve done this for a long time and missed a lot of family things. I got to make up for a lot of the things that you missed. We’re all in a situation where you get to a certain age where you have to help parents and you have to do that. I moved basically both parents on both sides of my family and my wife and we moved. We have a special needs son and had a lot of stuff going on. I just thought, ‘You know what, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to just chill for a little bit.’”

After dealing with the family matters and taking that extended break, Trotz found himself with an opportunity to step back into the game, taking over as general manager of the Predators for David Poile.

It’s been a busy start, from overseeing the 2023 NHL Draft that was held in Nashville to the process of renovating the roster in free agency.

“The process has been really good,” said Trotz. “I do miss a lot of the hockey stuff (when you are the head coach). I do miss the chaos behind the bench during the game. I love the locker room, I love all of that stuff. But the other stuff is good.

“As a coach, you don’t have as much patience as you need to be in this position (GM). But I’m learning as I’m going along. I do believe in some patience with what we did before free agency, in terms of changing the roster and the changes we made at the trade deadline. I don’t know if it’s a rebuild, a reset or whatever we want to call it. I don’t know if I have the exact word, but we’re going to be competitive. We’re surrounding our young players with good people and good pros and we’ll be a team that will get better as the season goes on.”

Trotz hired Andrew Brunette to replace John Hynes as the Predators head coach and is excited about the identity the organization is building under a guy he first coached in the American Hockey League with the Portland Pirates.

The relationship between Brunette and Trotz stretches back more than three decades and that will be a benefit as they grow together in their new roles.

“I think I’m very conscious of the fact that I’ve been in the league a long time,” said Trotz. “I’ve always said to Bruno, let’s always have the lines of communication (open), but I’m not going to get in your way. I understand the coach’s schedule and I understand when things aren’t going good, the last thing you need is, ‘Hey, are you showing them film?’ They show lots of film. Really? So I understand that after a tough loss, I don’t want to be the guy piling onto the coach because there’s enough pressure on the coaches as it is.

“(The priority is on) having a real good dialogue with a focus on support.”

The Predators are still led by captain Roman Josi, forward Filip Forsberg, newcomer Ryan O’Reilly and goalie Juuse Saros, but the team is definitely in transition.

“I always say, we’re in football country down in the south. We’ve been more of a running, smashmouth type of team for years,” said Trotz, who spent 15 seasons as head coach of the Predators and captured a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018. “We’ve always had a little bit of an element of sandpaper to us, but I really felt that our skill and our speed aspect of our game has to improve. That’s where the game is going. I coached in the game and had been known as more of a defensive coach all of my life. Those seemed to be the problems that I’ve inherited when I’ve taken over teams or whatever.

“So I always look at the personnel that you have and try to put an identity to that personnel. There is so much skill and so much speed, that’s where I wanted us to get to. There will be a year or two of transition because of the way we’ve been drafting and the existing players we have on the roster, to creating a roster that plays the more modern game.

“But the way you play, having an identity, I love speed and I love skill. I love the backbone that it takes to be a really good player. You can do both and that’s what we’re going to try and create in the next few years.”

Trotz has no regrets about how things turned out.

“I’m blessed to get this opportunity,” said Trotz. “I’ve got big shoes to fill. I said to everybody, David Poile is going to the Hall of Fame. He’s done a lot in this game and he’s allowed me to do what I’ve done in hockey. He’s a big part of it. I’m not going to be as good as David Poile in so many areas, but I’ll have my own thoughts. And that’s okay. I’m going to make my own mistakes and my own good decisions on the way as well.

“We made a lot of changes in a short period of time and now I’m sort of sitting back and saying, let’s let it organically happen. We’ve got everybody in the right seat, everybody in the right role and the right lane, so let them do their job.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca