Barry Trotz’s Biggest Moves as Predators’ GM

Duchene was signed to a ridiculous seven-year, $56 million contract, and in year four of the deal, Trotz decided to cut bait, buying him out for the rest of the deal. Unfortunately for the Predators, it’s backfired. He was signed by the Dallas Stars as a buy-low candidate, and he’s found his offensive form with 65 points in 80 games in 2023-24 and 82 points in 82 games last season. Duchene no longer has to be the guy in Dallas, with Wyatt Johnston, Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen garnering more attention.

Hindsight is 20/20 with these deals, and it was the right decision at the time. Still, it’s hard to feel positive about this move with Nashville still owing Duchene $1.56 million in 2026-27.

2023: Signing Ryan O’Reilly

This was the first surprising move of Trotz’s tenure. Many thought the Predators would go on a full-scale rebuild, with the Duchene buyout and trading Ryan Johansen, too.

However, getting Ryan O’Reilly was too juicy to pass up. They signed him to a four-year, $18 million deal on July 1, 2023. It was a pretty reasonable contract, and so far, it’s aged extremely well. He has had 67 goals and 111 assists in 217 games since joining Nashville. He earned votes for the Selke Trophy in 2023-24, and his two-way play helped the Predators earn a spot in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs and stay pretty close to the playoff line in 2025-26.

This season, O’Reilly is leading the team in points with 56. He’s been floated around as a potential trade candidate and could get a healthy return to kickstart Nashville’s rebuild. Unfortunately, he’s the only move that has completely worked out for Trotz.

2023: Signing Gustav Nyquist

Gustav Nyquist was another signee in the 2023 free agency class, going to Nashville on a two-year, $6.37 million deal to merely be depth on the wings. However, he became one of the Predators’ top scorers, with 23 goals and 75 points in the 2023-24 season.

He, like the Predators, fell back down to earth in the 2024-25 season. He had just nine goals and 21 points through 57 games before being shipped off to the Winnipeg Jets in a trade deadline deal. His tenure was emblematic of the Predators catching lightning in a bottle. The rest of the Trotz era would be spent unsuccessfully building off of this momentum.

2024: Signing Steven Stamkos

Here’s where the Trotz tenure went downhill. The Predators looked to bulk up their forward talent after a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Steven Stamkos, who had just come off a 2023-24 season with 40 goals and 81 points through 79 games, was available for the taking. The Lightning had surprisingly traded for and signed Jake Guentzel to a seven-year, $63 million contract, fazing their captain out of their future plans.

The Predators didn’t wait long. On July 1, they signed Stamkos to a four-year, $32 million deal. The results have been mercurial. In season one of the deal, Stamkos was a disappointment, with just 27 goals and 53 points through 82 games. He had a minus-36 plus/minus, which was the worst tally on the team.

In the 2025-26 season, he’s picked it up, with a team-leading 28 goals and 44 points in 56 games, but he’s still a defensive liability, with a minus-16 plus/minus, which is second to one of the other major moves of the 2024 offseason.

2024: Signing Jonathan Marchessault

Jonathan Marchessault’s stock couldn’t be higher after the 2023-24 season. He had set a career high in goals with the Vegas Golden Knights, potting in 42. He was one of the best players drafted by Vegas in the expansion draft, but the Golden Knights moved on from him.

It paved the way for Nashville to sign him to a five-year, $27.5 million deal, and it’s been nothing but misery for Marchessault. Last season saw him cut his goal total in half, with just 21 goals and 56 points through 78 games. He had a minus-29 plus/minus as well.

Somehow, 2025-26 has been worse for him. From December 2025 to January 2026, he dealt with a lower-body injury that kept him sidelined for 14 games, but he’s had just nine goals and 16 points through 37 games. He unbelievably has the lowest plus/minus of anyone on the team, with a minus-18. He’s been floated around in trade rumors, but he has a no-movement clause and a 15-team no-trade list. Nashville would probably need to retain salary if they wanted to trade him, so the new GM might have to buy him out.

2024: Signing Brady Skjei

This move might’ve been the one that looked the worst at the time of signing. Brady Skjei had come off a career season with the Carolina Hurricanes, notching 47 points in 80 games. The Predators rewarded him with a massive seven-year, $49 million contract. While Skjei was a good, durable offensive defenseman, he was in a great defensive system in Carolina, surrounded by defensemen such as Brent Burns, Jaccob Slavin, Dmitri Orlov, and Brett Pesce. He was also 30 by the time he signed the deal, so Nashville will be paying him into his late 30s.

Skjei has still been good offensively, finishing second among Predators defensemen in points each of the last two seasons. However, his defensive flaws have been exposed in Nashville. He had a minus-24 plus/minus in 2024-25 and has a minus-10 in the 2025-26 season. It’s not the worst thing in the world to have an offensive defenseman be substandard in his own zone, but when you’re paying him $7 million a year for another five years, the move becomes questionable. Skjei also has a no-movement clause, so it’ll be tough to offload his salary.

2024: Extending Juuse Saros

This has arguably been the worst deal of the Trotz tenure. The veteran goaltender was quietly one of the best goaltenders in the 2020s leading up to the deal. He’d never broken through and won a Vezina, but Juuse Saros had a .917 save percentage (SV%) from the start of his career to the 2023-24 season.

With Saros set to be a free agent after the 2024-25 season, the Predators had a big decision to make. They had top goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov waiting in the wings, and they could’ve traded Saros to a goalie-hungry team like the New Jersey Devils or Detroit Red Wings. Instead, Trotz rewarded his superstar goaltender with an eight-year deal worth $61.92 million in 2024, and the Predators traded Askarov to the San Jose Sharks for a nice return.

Saros has not been the same goaltender since pen was put to paper. He had a .895 SV% and a 2.98 goals-against average (GAA), but a lot of people excused Saros’ rough play because of the Predators’ lack of depth. Unfortunately, he’s been even worse in 2025-26, with just a .892 SV% and a 3.20 GAA.

Honorable Mentions

There have been a couple of other minor missteps in Trotz’s tenure. The Predators let Kiefer Sherwood walk in the 2024 free agency class, allowing him to sign with the Vancouver Canucks in 2024. He broke out in the midst of the Canucks disappointing 2024-25 season, notching 19 goals and 40 points. When the Canucks embraced their rebuild, they traded Sherwood to the San Jose Sharks for two second-round picks and Cole Clayton.

Young two-way center Thomas Novak also stalled out under Trotz’s watch. In the 2022-23 season, he averaged nearly a point per game, with 43 points in 51 games, but just two seasons later, he went down to just 22 points in 52 games before Trotz sent him to the Pittsburgh Penguins alongside Luke Schenn for Michael Bunting and a fourth-round pick.

Nashville also parted ways with defenseman Alexandre Carrier in the midst of the 2024-25 season, shipping him to the Montreal Canadiens for Justin Barron. He has been a quality second-pairing defenseman in Montreal, with 18 points in 57 games this season, while Barron has barely shown up in Nashville’s lineup. The 24-year old Barron has just five points, all off assists, through 31 games.

Where the Predators Go From Here

The Predators are in a sticky spot for the foreseeable future. They should be gearing up for a rebuild, with O’Reilly and Michael Bunting earning trade interest. However, they’re locked into massive contracts with Marchessault, Skjei, and Saros. There’s hope that Saros could return to form, but it feels more like an if than a when question.

Regardless of who the Predators go with as their next GM, Trotz is a cautionary tale. Legendary coaches rarely make good GMs. There are examples throughout sports, such as Phil Jackson’s tenure with the New York Knicks or Mike Holmgren’s tenure with the Cleveland Browns, but even with Trotz experiencing success in his first year, he lived up to the stereotype.