Broadcaster Blog: Former Preds Coach Trotz Wins Stanley Cup

Barry Trotz was an against-the-grain hire as the first head coach of the Nashville Predators by general manager David Poile in 1997. Poile asked for advice from many in the League about what type of coach he should hire. Most of the time, he was told to hire someone with NHL experience.
Instead, Poile brought Trotz to Music City from his regime with the Washington Capitals, where Trotz served as an American Hockey League assistant for two years, then head coach for another five. When he came to Nashville, he was basically an unknown asset.
However, my path had intersected with his previously. I wasn't around when he won the Calder Cup with the Portland Pirates in 1994. But two years later, Trotz's Pirates were in the final against the Rochester Americans, the AHL affiliate of the club I then worked for, the Buffalo Sabres.

Buffalo didn't make the Stanley Cup Playoffs that season (their last in the Buffalo Auditorium), so I spent some time with John Tortorella's Amerks in the playoffs.
Barry Trotz was on the losing side that time, making him 1-1 in the Calder Cup Final. He would coach the Portland Pirates one more season before signing on with Nashville to become first an "expansion draft" scout, then coach of the still-unnamed Predators.
That was where our paths crossed again. I was in Los Angeles the last weekend of January to honor my former broadcast partner, Bob Miller, voice of the Los Angeles Kings in an on-ice ceremony at the Forum.
The ceremony was for a Saturday afternoon game, and I wasn't scheduled to fly back to Buffalo until Monday afternoon. The Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks were going to be at home the next night (Feb. 1) against the Chicago Blackhawks, so I got a credential for that game. Who was seated next to me in the pressbox? Barry Trotz, scouting for the expansion draft!
Out of the two rosters that night, the Predators would take Greg Johnson and Sergei Krivokrasov from the Blackhawks, plus Mighty Ducks' defenseman JJ Daigneault to star in their first season. (Later to become Preds from Anaheim: Paul Kariya, Jeremy Stevenson and Matt Cullen; from Chicago: Reid Simpson).

What I will always remember from that game as the NHL entered its first-ever Olympic break (for the Nagano, Japan, Olympics, where the Dominik Hasek-led Czechs won Gold),

Team Canada of one of its brightest stars.
That was Chicago's Gary Suter who cross-checked Kariya up high, cutting him out of Olympic play and shortening his season to 22 games. Both Barry and I were shocked at what we had seen as we simultaneously looked up at the monitors to confirm it.
At the end of June, while still working for Empire Sports Network in Buffalo, I was assigned to cover the Expansion and Entry Drafts there, where I did features on the new team, interviewing David Poile and Barry Trotz. Little did I know I would be preparing for a move to Nashville in about two months.
As we got to know Trotz over his 14 seasons in Nashville, you could not help but get along with him. We were at the Hermitage Hotel several years ago, with Trotz being honored by the Nashville Association of Talent Directors, and I was there to present him. He noticed me at the silent auction table before the show, and he knew I had bid on a Mike Ditka-autographed football. Hours later, as we were leaving the hotel, he presented me with the football! He knew I often dined at Ditka's restaurant in Chicago and what a fan I am of him.
Trotz was always willing to help with what we had to do on the air, including one stint when I was doing a talk show in town, when I asked him to join us as "guest picker" on "Silly Underdog Picks."
By the way, Northwestern did not come through for him that day, losing 42-17, but he played that game the right way too, going for the big upset!
Now, Barry Trotz (along with former Predators assistant coach Lane Lambert and goaltending coach Mitch Korn) have helped the Washington Capitals win their first Stanley Cup, the first former Preds coaches to accomplish the feat. Former Preds players who have gone elsewhere to win Lord Stanley: Matt Cullen, Greg DeVries, Mark Eaton, Shane Hnidy, Patric Hornqvist, Andrew Hutchinson and Kimmo Timonen.
I would hope you would be willing to join me in toasting them all!