Here are some excerpts from their conversation, which took off following some small talk about Stockholm with Trotz asking, “But how’s your season going? Obviously, a lot better than ours at this point.”
DUBAS: “It’s been good. (First-year coach) Dan (Muse) has come in and done a really good job right from training camp on. The veteran guys here are, obviously, so proud, so they’ve played very well, all of them. And I think (former Penguins coach) Mike Sullivan did an unbelievable job here, but 10 years is a long time as a coach and now you see that impact he’s having, especially of late, with the (New York) Rangers and they’re starting to find their stride. But I just think it was probably time for everybody to kind of get a refresh and Dan’s been able to come in.”
TROTZ: “I was a coach in one place in Nashville for a long time and there is something to be said with (what) I said (when) I left Nashville. It probably was good for people in Nashville and the players because you get the same voice all the time. At the same time, it refreshed myself going to Washington. So, I think you’ve done a really nice job this year. Your veterans have really stepped up for you.”
DUBAS: “Yeah, and I think the younger guys have brought good energy. How have you enjoyed going from coaching to managing?”
TROTZ: “It’s been difficult. I have excellent people around me. Guys like (assistant GM) Brian Poile, who’s been around, and I would say he was very similar to David (Poile, his father and Trotz’s predecessor as GM). He’s very organized, he’s been in the game forever, done everything and (assistant GM and director of player development) Scott Nichol, who I actually coached (with the Predators) at one time, is doing an excellent job in Milwaukee (American Hockey League) and (assistant GM and director of scouting) Jeff Kealty is on the scouting side. I think that part has really helped me.
“The one part that I miss, and I call it, ‘game day,’ is being in the dressing room, being a part of those quick decisions, being a part of everything, from the emotions to everything. And I think as a coach you feel like you can affect the game quicker. As a general manager, I don’t know if you feel this, but for me, the best way to describe it is I’m on long-term injured reserve. I’m part of the team, but I don’t have an immediate effect on the team sometimes, even though you do.”
DUBAS: “Right. It’s helpless. This time of the day, especially, a few hours before the game, there’s not a lot you can do and then the game starts and your whole mood is predicated on the team playing poorly or playing well and having success and there’s nothing you can really do to influence it once it starts. But you’re also judged completely on that. So, I don’t have an answer for that.
“Going back to ‘the Soo’ (Sault Ste. Marie) and then Toronto and here, it’s an angst, I think, that goes the whole game.”
TROTZ: “Yeah, and I’ve been very conscious of not trying to coach my team, if that makes any sense, because I’ve been in the League a long time and I try to assist when asked. So, I’ve taken a step back. … I’ve had [Predators coach Andrew Brunette as a player]. I talk to ‘Bruno’ every day. We have a really good relationship. He’s really a sharp hockey guy.
“The first year, we really overachieved in terms of our record. We’d thought we’d be in three or four years of pain. We really didn’t have any pain sort of [initially], probably overachieved a little bit, and then last year was painful. The expectations went really high and, really, we were at a point in our organization where we really felt that we still had some good players and we could stay relevant for a little bit. … But we had the older players. and we didn’t have any young players, and the middle was sort of gone. So, tried to extend it, went to free agency, as you know, and got some of those veteran players and picked up draft choices and now we’re just trying to wait for them.”
DUBAS: “But the Wood kid (rookie forward Matthew Wood) has now come up.”
TROTZ: “You’re starting to see glimpses of it. You’re going see the Wood kid. Matthew has come out of college and is starting to get his taste of the NHL. Guys like (defenseman) Tanner Molendyk and, obviously, we got (forward) Brady Martin this year in the draft (No. 5 pick).”
DUBAS: “And you know he’s going to be good because of where you drafted him from (Sault Ste. Marie).”
TROTZ: “The Soo. A connection. I love the kids, and you know this, you were in the Soo. I love kids that they’ve got, I call, ‘hard skill’. They’re hard and they play with skill, but they don’t really think of themselves as skillful players and they’re tremendously skilled. So, I like that part. We have another player in Russia, Yegor Surin, who’s got a lot of that. He’s a hard, hard-nosed kid who’s got some skill. So, I’m trying to build it.
“We’re in a position where I’ve got some shooters. I need some playmakers. I don’t have enough playmakers. If you would give me Sid or Malkin for a little bit, I think they could be a little more productive. But we’re in that transition phase where we’re not in, I don’t want to say a rebuild, but we sort of are. But I just call it a build. We’re starting to build.”
DUBAS: “It sounds like we’re living the same thing. We have guys that have won (for) a long time. … And our guys have won three Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh (2009, 2015, 2016) and have been together for so long, they want to get back there and win again. And similar to your situation you talked about where there’s that lack of middle, I think with our group when I got here those guys were in their mid-30s or moving on to late 30s and then there was sort a gap after and there was Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel and Tristan Jarry to go down to the guys in their 20s.
“So, as we’re trying to backfill that and get some of the younger guys to come along, those players who have had that success and are such elite competitors I think you get (that) their patience isn’t necessarily the greatest virtue, but it’s just been trying to continue to keep them in the loop. And it’s always good, when you talk about Matthew Wood, and for us whether it’s Ben Kindel or different players coming up, Ville Koivunen, Harrison Brunicke, and the goaltender , when the guys come up and they see that there are good guys coming, it tends to help a little bit.”
TROTZ: “Yeah, it does. I think players understand players pretty well. I always look at the top players and when you bring a young player and stick him in the lineup, I just watch the older players. And this is probably from the coaching aspect, players know players. You can always tell right away if the other players think the young guys are ready or are going to be a player. They have that, they sense that, and that’s something that even as coaches or scouts or fans, you don’t get to see that.”
DUBAS: “Did you find that was more so when you were coaching the guys would come up to you and tell you that or do you find it more so in management?”
TROTZ: “I found more so in coaching because players would come up and say, ‘Hey, if you want to put that player with me, I wouldn’t mind playing with him.’ Those are a little more telling. As a manager, the difference between, when I coached, I sort of tried to have a relationship with the players. I always looked at myself as, ‘They’re all my kids. I’m sort of the father and I’m going to love you. I might not like the way you play and I’ll let you know, but the next day I’m going to love you and I’m going to let it go’ and you can have a relationship. And I think they’re more open to talking to you.
“As a manager, you don’t get that opportunity as much, so it’s a little harder, but I think I try to at least carry that over a little bit where they can feel like they can come up and talk to me once in a while, which is, hopefully, a quality I can continue to have as long as I’m doing this job.”
