Trotz Talks Trade Deadline, Looks to Future as Preds Continue Season

At the start of the season, Barry Trotz imagined himself utilizing the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline to add a few players to gear up for a push to the playoffs.

Instead, the Predators general manager found himself moving on from four players this week, one that culminated with the official deadline at 2 p.m. CT on Friday afternoon.

By that time, Trotz had completed a number of deals over the past week as he worked to put his team in the best position possible, while also recognizing where they sit in the NHL standings with 20 games to go.

“I don’t think we expected to be here where we are,” Trotz said Friday from Bridgestone Arena. “The plan is in pen, and it always has been, but the path is in pencil. The plan hasn’t changed, but how we’re going to get there has, because we’re in a selling mode rather than a buying mode. It’s a lot more fun being in the buying mode, and today was difficult.”

Trotz began his press conference by thanking the players - Gustav Nyquist, Luke Schenn, Tommy Novak and Mark Jankowski - that were dealt away in a trio of separate trades in recent days.

That first transaction - a trade that sent Nyquist to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a second-round draft pick in 2026 - brought a reality to the rest of the team with the deal occurring in the middle of Nashville’s game against the Islanders in New York last Saturday afternoon.

“If you know anything about Gus, he's like the perfect human,” Trotz said. “Quality person, quality family, gives you everything he's got, and then he's very popular in the room. He’s moved, and your room feels it, and there's an emotional level that - it’s weird. Unless you're on a team, I can't really describe it.”

A few days later, Trotz sent Novak and Schenn to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for winger Michael Bunting and a fourth-round selection in the 2026 NHL Draft. Trotz called Bunting an impactful player the Preds were very much interested in acquiring, and the team views him as an important piece moving forward.

On the other side of that deal, Trotz explained the emergence of rookie forward Fedor Svechkov as a consistent piece in the Nashville lineup played into the ability to move on from Novak.

“Seeing a guy like Svechkov start coming into the lineup playing center - he hasn't produced like Tommy yet, but he's also seven years younger at the same time,” Trotz said. “Going forward, ‘Svech’ is going to be the guy. And we’ll take a few lumps if we have to with maybe some difference in age and experience, and we’ll move on from Tommy. [Novak has] a decent ticket in terms of dollar value, and we just felt that we could use those funds in different areas for cleaning up some other areas… We just felt you look two or three years down the road where Tommy is, we were going to have to do that eventually, so [I’d] just rather do it now than later.”

The final trade came in later on Friday afternoon with the Predators sending Jankowski to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Trotz said he had discussions on a number of other players as well leading up to the deadline on Friday, but he wasn’t about to make deals just for the sake of doing so.

“Every player was in discussion at some point or another,” Trotz said. “You take values on them, and you set a value for what you would take. And if you don't get that value, you don't move that… You set a price for them, and if you don't get that value, then you just move on.”

Trotz didn’t have to give anything up for another pair of players he acquired on Thursday afternoon with forward Jakub Vrana and defenseman Jordan Oesterle both claimed on waivers from Washington and Boston, respectively.

Nashville’s GM expects both players to be a part of Nashville’s lineup in the final month of the regular season, and with the Trade Deadline now in the rearview, Trotz is focused on the future.

And in the near term, he knows exactly what he wants to see from his group.

“I'm a cultural guy,” Trotz said. "I don't want to see quit… As a coach, I always said, ‘If you play hard and you're committed and everybody’s pulling on the rope at the same time and doing all those things, the scores take care of themselves.’ I can't tell you if we're going to win or lose, but I can tell you if you've committed as a group and you're working and you're leaving it on the ice… I think they owe that to our fan base and to each other, more than anything, that they're in right to the end.”

This season hasn’t gone the way anyone - within or outside of the organization - anticipated it would. But that plan Trotz has is still in pen, and while the path has been altered for now, the Predators are already working toward establishing the next passageway.

And if Trotz has it his way, he’ll have a different mindset the next time the trade deadline arrives.

“One thing that I'm a big believer in, and I don't stray from it, I'm a big believer in culture wins,” Trotz said. “This is a good test for our culture. We haven't had the season that we wanted, and we've been way too inconsistent. I want to see us start forming an identity that we can carry forward next year."