NHL rumblings: No panic for the Predators, no easy solutions for the Maple Leafs and more

Barry Trotz stood his ground earlier this season when people were calling for him to make a coaching change.

For many general managers, it can be difficult to resist the lure of a coaching change when the walls seem to be closing in around them.

Trotz, one of the winningest head coaches in NHL history, stood his ground and supported Andrew Brunette.

Since then, his team has responded, now winning seven of its last 10 matches.

“Sometimes people focus on the wins and losses and not necessarily the process,” Trotz said. Athletics Monday. “Luckily, I can see the process down here: how the coaches work with the players, how the players react to the coaches. I just felt like the players weren’t giving up on the coaches, and the coaches weren’t giving up on the players. They were actually coming together.”

Added Trotz, who is fifth all-time in NHL history with 914 wins as a coach: “I’ve been coaching a long time and I probably have a lot more patience than most general managers for that, I guess.

After weekend home wins over the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Rangers, setting up a very tough road test against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night before the break, the Predators appear to be a team.

“We’re playing more consistently. That’s the most important thing,” Trotz said. “What we struggled with at the start of the year was consistency. We took a lot of players out last year and brought in a few. It takes time sometimes, and we’re starting to have a more cohesive identity.”

The perfect scenario for the Predators is that, here and now, they remain competitive within earshot of the wild-card race – but overall, Trotz won’t deviate from the plan to continue integrating more youth into his roster over time as the roster evolves.

Which means that even though the temperature has dropped within the team, I feel like the Preds GM is still open to listening to veterans like Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault (both of whom have full no-movement clauses) as we inch closer to the March 6 trade deadline.

“The guys are playing well as a team right now. Let’s see where it goes,” Trotz said. “We’ll go about our business and see how it plays out over the next couple of months here.”

The kings lose Bergevin

The knee-jerk reaction when Marc Bergevin left the Kings front office for a job with the Sabers is that it makes sense since it was former general manager Rob Blake who brought him to Los Angeles as a senior advisor.

However, the reality is that current Kings general manager Ken Holland has relied heavily on Bergevin since he took over last season. The two have history, and Holland was happy to have a former NHL GM on his team to bounce ideas off of.

While losing Bergevin to the Buffalo Sabers this weekend, where he joins new general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, was no small thing, Holland wasn’t going to object either.

“I’ve known Berg since he was a Red Wings player in the ’90s,” Holland said. Athletics Monday. “Obviously, I knew him very well when he was a manager in Montreal and I was a manager in Detroit. I wouldn’t want to retain anyone if they feel like there’s a better opportunity there.

“He called me the other day and told me he was getting the associate general manager title in Buffalo and that he had made the decision to join Jarmo. I’m grateful for the short time we had together here. I enjoyed my time with him. He’s a good hockey player. Maybe he’ll be back in the saddle somewhere as a general manager. But in the meantime, he’s gone to where he feels there’s a better opportunity for him, good for Berg.

Bergevin was runner-up to Mathieu Darche for the New York Islanders general manager job last May and also interviewed for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins general manager positions in the summer of 2023. There’s a good chance he lands another general manager job at some point. Although he joined close friend Kekalainen in Buffalo in a bigger role than he had in Los Angeles, I would also argue that Bergevin going to Buffalo shows he believes the Sabers have a real opportunity with Kekalainen at the helm to make some noise.

As for the Kings, Holland does not plan to replace Bergevin at this stage. He hired Tyler Wright as director of player personnel last summer.

“Berg will be missed, but some people here internally will pick up some of what he did,” Holland said.

And finally, to the Leafs

In mid-October, at a Board of Governors meeting in New York, I met Keith Pelley.

The intent of my short interview with the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment was pretty simple: He had taken a more day-to-day approach with the hockey team last May after the firing of team president Brendan Shanahan — Pelley began working more closely with general manager Brad Treliving and head coach Craig Berube — and I wanted to know what he had learned now that he had looked closer under the hood.

“Brad is meticulous in his decision-making and analysis, and the leader (Berube) is one of the most direct, willing and passionate hockey players you will ever meet,” Pelley said at the time.

He seemed to have really enjoyed getting to know the two.

We also became aware of the team’s situation after years of struggle.

“You know the age of this team,” Pelley said. “It’s time to go. And I think we have two leaders, Brad and Chief, who will hopefully take us to the promised land.”

The “here we go” comment was brought up several times by the boys on TSN’s Overdrive, of course. He hasn’t aged well.

In Pelley’s defense, what else is he going to say at this point? That he no longer believes in the team? After trading away first-round picks in ’26 and ’27, they went for it last season – of course, it was time to go. It is not yet time to rebuild.

All of this brings us to the here and now. I didn’t see the Leafs as a contender this season after losing Mitch Marner and not replacing him. Still, I definitely had them in the playoffs. I thought that as constructed they could be a better playoff team than a regular season team.

I certainly didn’t see them at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings at Christmas.

The injuries have been real, especially the impact of Chris Tanev’s absence, but every team has injuries.

Treliving has one year left on his contract after this season. Pelley has had time to get to know him better now. It was always, win or lose, a season in which Pelley had to decide whether a change was needed next summer at this key leadership position.

However, regardless of where Pelley decides to go on this front, one cannot view the 2025-2026 season in a vacuum.

To me, there are two critical moments in the Auston Matthews era that crippled this Leafs team:

1. Losing to Montreal in the first round in 2021 after leading 3-1 in the series. The Leafs resisted making big changes in the wake of this unforgivable collapse when the red flags with this core were perhaps impossible to ignore. I still believe that the impact of this defeat on the psyche of the best players still persists today.

2. After a second-round loss to Florida in 2023 in which the Leafs didn’t show up, Marner’s total non-movement began on July 1. Did Toronto miss the boat by not moving him before this date? Considering how everything went with Marner after that, including him saying “no” (which was his right) to a trade to the Carolina Hurricanes before the deadline last season, well, yes, the Leafs should have moved him before July 1, 2023. Easy to say now, I get it. However, the circumstances were that a general manager change had just been made and Treliving can hardly be blamed for not wanting to trade away his second best player four weeks after taking over. This call should have come from Shanahan.

And finally, there’s also the simple reality of the salary cap system and the time limit a team can play in it. The Leafs have been perennial contenders for a decade. Before this season, I thought they would make the playoffs for at least two more years. And that may still be the case. They haven’t come out of it yet.

The fan base is a mix of anger and, more alarmingly, apathy.

And there is no easy solution, whatever path you choose.