Predators fans happy with changes, but still want more
Recent polling indicates Preds fans are hungry for a few more changes
The last few weeks have been quite eventful for the Nashville Predators. The team traded away several veteran players while piling up a mountain of draft picks. If that wasn't enough, they also made the monumental announcement that General Manager David Poile would be retiring at the end of the season and would be replaced by Barry Trotz.
These were changes Preds fans had been requesting for a long time, and after waiting for so long, it seemed like they were finally getting their reward.
Can you blame them? After the Stanley Cup Finals run of 2017 and the President's Trophy of 2018, the team has made a first-round exit from the playoffs. And, while the current season is ongoing, the team sits 4 points out of the final wild card spot. Of course, anything is possible, but at this stage in the season, it's hard to make up ground on teams that are just as determined to make it to the offseason. And, with the Predators remaining schedule ranking as the 2nd hardest in the NHL, things aren't getting any easier.
I sent out a poll on twitter to see if fans were happy with the direction of the team after the dramatic changes of the past few weeks.
A whopping 98.2% of respondents felt the team was headed in the right direction. Now, I know as well as anyone that teams don't make decisions like GM changes and trades based on fan sentiment. However, if there was ever a question of how fans would respond, it seems pretty clear that the changes are popular.
Next, I wanted to find out what fans thought should be the next step for the Predators to keep things moving in the right direction.
My reasoning for this question was that many saw David Poile (and some of his long-term contracts) as one of the major contributing factors to the Predators inability to get out of the first round. With that roadblock, removed, what does the team need in order to be successful?
While responses were a little more spread out, the vast majority of fans agreed that they'd like to see a new head coach in the off-season. Of course, it's entirely possible that those who chose "Total tear down & rebuild" assumed a new head coach may have been part of that rebuild package, which would bring that total to around 82%.
With such a large group of fans calling for a new coach, I was curious what the specific complaint was when it came to John Hynes.
Not too many fans were worried about the Predators special teams performance. As Alex Daugherty pointed out recently, the Predators penalty kill has been improving consistently since Dan Hinote's hiring.
The power play still has some issues, but that isn't what fans are worried about.
The overwhelming majority of fans (88.8%) don't like the way John Hynes manages his players on the ice. While there were no specific complaints about the system he employs on the ice, that was the factor most people chose.
Perhaps they don't like the heavy, physical style of play Hynes has embraced as head coach of the team. The goal of wearing a team down over the course of the night in order to open the ice up toward the end of the game may not be as exciting as fans would like. The Predators have won 10 games this season alone with a score of 2-1. Perhaps they'd be more interested in watching a speed game with quick transitions, odd-man rushes, and breakaway chances. Teams like the Edmonton Oilers play a fast-paced style like this, which has been especially hard for the Predators to overcome during the last few seasons.
If you click on that last poll and read the comments, it seems like most of the frustration comes from the way Hynes constructs his lineup each night.
It has been a common complaint over his tenure that Hynes tends to favor, or give a longer leash to, veteran players as opposed to younger players. Mikael Granlund, despite not having a very good season by any metric, maintained a spot in the top-6 each night until he was traded to Pittsburgh. However, if a younger player, Eeli Tolvanen for example, had a rough game, it seemed they were relegated to the healthy scratch list. After being waived by the Preds and picked up by Seattle, Tolvanen commented, "Sometimes, they wanted me to be the checker, then one night, they wanted me to be the scorer," in reference to his experience in Nashville in this article over at The Hockey News.
While fans speculated that Tolvanen was getting mixed messages by playing on the 4th line while still being expected to produce offense at a high rate, his comments seem to confirm that those suspicions were merited. This, perhaps, is what troubles fans about the team rebuilding with young talent under the current coach.
Regardless, incoming GM Barry Trotz commented that he would be evaluating the coaching staff for the remainder of the season. Of course, with several veteran players traded away and injuries to a few more, there's nothing left but room at the top for the youth of the organization to play. And, they're making the most of it. Perhaps they're proving to their coach that they deserve a longer leash. Maybe Hynes' recent forced reliance on rookies shifts the dynamic in the way he sets the line up.
John Hynes still has one year remaining on his contract. Despite fan opinions, there's only one person who will be solely responsible for choosing who's behind the bench for the Predators next season, and that's Barry Trotz.
