The Nashville Predators are interviewing general managers (GMs) after Barry Trotz announced he’s stepping down at the end of the 2025-26 season. In this regard, they’re doing something they’ve never done in their existence: going outside the organization.
It’s respectable that they would do this. From their first year in the league to the 2022-23 season, David Poile was their GM, and while his tenure had some misses at the end, such as the Matt Duchene contract and Colton Sissons extension, he will also be adored in Nashville.
That might not be the same for Trotz. While he will always be remembered as the Predators’ first coach ever, his tenure as GM was a disaster. In the 2024 offseason, he went all-in on a team that was old and needed some luck to make the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. That caused the Predators to have a bottom-five record in the league in the 2024-25 season.
Related: How Predators Head Coach Andrew Brunette Saved His Job
As a result, the Predators are going outside the organization for their next hire. They’re interviewing several candidates, so the hiring process will be lengthy. However, there are a couple of names that should give Predators fans concern that they’re in the race.
Peter Chiarelli
Peter Chiarelli comes fresh off a five-year stint as vice president of hockey operations with Central Division rival St. Louis Blues. He left them in March to set himself up to get the job in Nashville.
However, while he has plenty of experience as GM of the Boston Bruins (2006-15) and Edmonton Oilers (2015-19), that experience is checkered at best. With Boston, he deserves credit for building a Stanley Cup-winning team in 2011.
However, there were some major flaws in his reign. He traded budding star Tyler Seguin to the Dallas Stars for Louis Eriksson and a few depth pieces in 2013. He also gave major extensions with no-movement clauses to Dennis Seidenberg, Milan Lucic, and Chris Kelly, which caused him to ship Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders for two second-round picks.
Chiarelli’s time with the Oilers doesn’t have a silver lining of a Stanley Cup. He wasted the early years of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl by not providing adequate depth on the roster. His best move was signing Draisaitl to a bargain contract after his entry-level deal expired, but moves like those were few and far between.
His contract to Lucic (seven-year, $42 million) was probably the worst deal given out in a rough 2016 Free Agency class, and contracts to Andrej Sekara (six-year, $33 million) and Kris Russell (four-year, $16 million) were rough too.
With trades, Chiarelli’s track record doesn’t look good either. He shipped budding star Taylor Hall to the New Jersey Devils for second-pairing defenseman Adam Larsson in the 2016 offseason, and Hall won the Hart Trophy in the 2017-18 season.
Some can argue that he was the biggest reason Garth Snow lasted as long as he did as GM of the New York Islanders. The Boychuk deal hurt, but Chiarelli went a step further in Edmonton. He traded underachieving winger Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome in the 2017 offseason, only for Eberle to figure things out in New York. He also traded a first and a second for Griffin Reinhart, and those picks turned into Mat Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier (Islanders traded up for him).
Marc Bergevin
Marc Bergevin is also on the list of people Nashville is interviewing for the role, but similar to Chiarelli, he’s also had a rough tenure with a Canadian team. He was the GM of the Montreal Canadiens from 2012 to 2021, known for making risky decisions that would sometimes work in his favor, but backfire more often than not.
He deserves credit for a few moves. The Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk trades worked extremely well in hindsight. Max Domi earned a career-high 72 points the year after Bergevin acquired him for Galchenyuk. Nick Suzuki is the franchise superstar of the current team, better than Pacioretty ever was in Montreal.
Bergevin also deserves credit for drafting Cole Caufield, and the Shea Weber-P.K. Subban deal worked out in his favor, too. There are also a few minor moves, such as trading for Jeff Petry and acquiring Tomas Tatar in the Pacioretty deal. Some of these moves helped Montreal make the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.
However, his bold trades and signings burned him as well. Carey Price’s extension (eight-year, $84 million) in the 2017 offseason was obscene, and Price wasn’t the same after the extension. He also shipped Mikhail Sergachev for Jonathan Drouin that same offseason, and Drouin never panned out in Montreal, while Sergachev emerged as a No. 1 defenseman with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
His free agency track record is full of rough patches, with awful contracts to Karl Alzner in 2017 (five-year, $23.125 million), Josh Anderson in 2020 (seven-year, $38.5 million), and Brendan Gallagher in 2020 (six-year, $39 million). The Canadiens are still dealing with the Anderson and Gallagher contracts today.
Where the Predators Stand
The Predators are in a decent position for any new GM. They are in a playoff spot as of March 31, and while that’s due to the Western Conference being top-heavy, the Predators have the talent to compete in the playoffs. They also have an interesting young core, with Matthew Wood, Joakim Kemell, and Brady Martin headlining the bunch. There are still the Brady Skjei and Jonathan Marchessault contracts to deal with, but Nashville has some superstar talent and a devoted fanbase.
However, the Predators will need a GM with a new vision for the team, whether that’s embarking on a rebuild or building on the roster (with more savvy moves). Trotz’s tenure in Nashville proved that a lot can change in a short amount of time, and the Predators need to keep that in mind for their next GM.
