Barry Trotz
Barry Trotz
Barry Trotzis the head coach of the National Hockey League's Washington Capitals and the former head coach of the NHL's Nashville Predators. He was previously the coach of the American Hockey League's Baltimore Skipjacks and Portland Pirates, with whom he won an AHL championship in 1994. That same year, he won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award, which is awarded to the outstanding coach in the AHL as voted upon by the AHL Broadcasters and Writers. On February 20, 2013...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 July 1962
CityWinnipeg, Canada
We've danced with the devil a little bit in terms of chances, and it sort of came back and burnt us tonight.
To me, that's a little bit of a slap in the face. I think we're a pretty good hockey team. ... The only thing we need to do is prove it on the ice.
Today, we were oil and water. We didn't mix very well. We had guys with a little bit of anger.
When we should shoot, we are passing, and when we should pass, we're shooting. We are a little bit out of whack there.
A little bit of a turning point is that they scored 17 seconds after we got a 2-0 lead.
It was a bang-bang type of thing. We did a good job when we went down 2-0 with Walker's goal. We hung our heads a little bit when they scored their next three goals.
Things came to us real easy in the first period. It is a little bit of human nature to let your foot off the gas a bit after a start like that. When a game is so easy at the start it is a hard game to play.
I thought we gave them way too much room. There is a fine line between respect and giving them too much respect. We were giving them a zone to create some speed.
I thought the power play and the goaltending were key for us. Mentally, we weren't as focused as we should be.
I thought our whole roster played well. That's how you win in this league. You need 20 guys to contribute. We played a real smart game in terms of puck management. We did a real solid job with the puck. We had no blind or hope passes. I think we managed the game well.
I think it was a combination of things. The Blues were deeper than we were and maybe a little tougher, and their power play was unbelievable. But in the last 18 months, the climate's changed a little bit.
We dug ourselves such a big hole early on. I always say that mentally and physically, you have a bank account as a team, and we had to go to the bank account real early. At the end of the season, we overdrew in some areas. When you dig yourself in a hole, it's tough to get out of. Hopefully what you saw in the 55 to 57 games in the middle stretch is more of what you'll see from the Predators. We're going to have to be more resilient.
We had zero fights in our first seven games. We made up for that tonight.
Our primary objective is that Jiri is taken care of.